Aliens
by MarkKB
Summary: When a documentary report is submitted to the Kokaua Gazette detailing the existance of aliens on Kaua'i, the lives of the extended family are put in jeopady by those seeking to tear them apart from within.
1. Teleboxes

**A/N:** This originally started off as two story ideas - one was a random tangent, and one was a sequel to the series episode "Spats" - but I decided to merge them. This takes place a year before _Lilo & Stitch's Star Trek_, so as of yet, there is no 419, 426 or 628. Enjoy!  
**Legal Disclaimer:** Lilo, Stitch, Jumba, Pleakley, Nani, the Grand Councilwoman, Gantu, 625, Merwin and Dean(?) are copyright © 2002-2006 Disney Enterprises, Inc. I wish I owned them, but hey, what can ya do? All other characters mentioned in this fanfic are © meh.

* * *

**Aliens  
Chapter 1: Teleboxes**

"…_accused of illegal genetic experimentation!"  
_Pleakley sat on the sofa; every now and then flinging some so called 'popcorn' into his mouth.  
"_How do you plead?"  
_"_Not guilty! My experiments are…"  
_THUD. THUD. THUD.  
Jumba walked into the room, a can of paint stuck on his foot.  
"Don't ask," he muttered as he lowered himself onto the couch. He groaned.  
"What are you watching thi…"  
His eyes widened as he saw what was on the television.  
"…_completely within legal boundaries."  
"We believe that you…"  
_"WHY ARE YOU… WHO GAVE YOU THAT TAPE?"  
_"Created something? Ha! That would be…"  
_"Calm down, Mr. Four Eyes."  
"…_and unethical. I would never ever…"  
_Pleakly stuck out one finger.  
"Number one: Everyone in the Galactic Federation has a copy of that tape."  
"…_make more than one!"  
_He stuck out a second.  
"Number duo: this isn't a video."  
"THEN WHY IS IT ON THE TELE-BOX?"  
"_MONSTROSITY? What you see before…"  
_"Because it's broadcasting."  
"WHAT!"

"_In our where are they now segment: Dr. Jumba Jookiba mysteriously vanished in the year 4107, Turo Central Time, hardly two days after his famous trial, which was broadcast to almost every television channel in the Federation. See _"The Galactic Federation v. Galaxy Defense Agencies", "The Galactic Federation v. Dr. Jumba Jookiba, PhD"_. The Galactic High Council has declined to comment on the whereabouts of Jookiba. The Grand Councilwoman had this to say:"  
_The GCW appeared on the screen, standing behind a podeum, amid flash photography and numerous news station's microphones.  
"_Jumba Jookiba is of no concern to the Federation. The galaxy can sleep safe knowing that Jookiba is somewhere where he won't be a problem."  
_"_However, a call was detected from the Galactic Federation's Detention Cell 4 to a location in Hawaii, Earth, one earth-year later. One of the callers was Jumba Jookiba; the other was Agent Wendy Pleakley. A recording of the call shows that Pleakley had initiated said call from a small town dubbed by the Federation 'EAUS50HK4', named by its inhabitants 'Kokaua Town, in the tropical island of Kaua'i, on planet Terran III, otherwise known as Earth. Earth has been designated 'off-limits' by the Federation for over 50 Earth-years, ever since a ship of Plorgarian scientists crash-landed in Rose Well, Kantooka America. Well, I'll bet they have a ko-cou-wa# time over there!"  
_The newsreader laughed to himself.  
"_Over to you, Janka. Any falling egg jokes?"  
_The alien named Janka, who looked kind of like Pleakley, shuffled his papers.  
"_Well, there's going to be a magnetic flare-up in Sector G1, and a new wormhole has appeared due to gravi-flux effects… the wormhole, dubbed WH593752, forms a new link between planet P8X873, a.k.a. Wolf 272B, and P3X984, a.k.a. Prometheus Alpha. And last, but not least, a fault in the G273 model hyperdrive has resulted in a pileup on the intergalactic engineway – massive traffic jams quadrant wide! DriveThrough have initiated a recall of all drives affected. Means I'll be taking the spacie§ home today…"  
_Janka sighed. His colleague nodded.  
"_I know what you mean. Well, this is Kanyu Betcha…"  
_"… _and Janka Varymah…"  
"…saying glakto blanda."_

Meanwhile, on the other side of Kokaua Town, in the backyard of someone-or-another's house, there was a run-down dirty old shack. And if one were to peek inside the shattered window-pane, one would see two people: one was leaning on the precipice between 'normal-sized' and 'fat', the other was about as thin and tall as Pleakley. Both were human, but one was holding what, to the untrained eye, looked like a Sootal Series-300 Plasma Converter, but was really made of tissue paper rolls and Sellotape.  
"Uhuh, I've got it!"  
The bigger of the two got up and examined his work.  
He had been tuning the television in some manner, and he smiled as glyphs foreign-looking to any English-speaking person on Earth filled the display.  
_"…Riro ando Suteicchi Ze Suriizu… Deisunii Chyannaru no…"  
_A blue fluffy dog-like creature jumped around inside the T.V., holding a plasma cannon.  
"Er… Merwin…"  
"What?" Merwin half-shouted in a rather annoyed voice.  
"That's Japan's Deisunii Channel.'"  
Merwin glanced at the screen. His face fell.  
"Oh."  
Crestfallen, he returned to his quiet tinkering.

* * *

# This is alien humour, not supposed to be understandable by 'Earthies'. A cou-wa is a type of fish on Turo, it also means 'thrill'. 'Ko-cou', on the other hand, is a variety of egg. Just so ya know, I don't get it either.  
§ Interstellar bus. 


	2. Television, Mail and Plans

**Aliens  
****Chapter 2: Television, Mail and Plans**

"Hey, Dean, hand me my cocoa-moo, will ya?"  
"Sure thing, Mer."  
Merwin carefully slurped his mug of hot chocolate as he tweaked the insides of the television set. Dean walked in front of the TV with the intention of telling him when it was behaving itself.  
At that moment, the doorbell rang.  
"Dean, would ya get that?"  
Dean jogged through the shack and opened the front door.  
"Hey, Joe," he greeted.  
"Hey Dean… got ya the usual, letters from ya mum and a copy of the _Kokaua Town Gazette_."  
"Cool, dude."  
"Y'know," said Joe, "you're about the most normal group of people on my round. First there's that snobby red-haired brat with the Shi-Tzu – boy is she a stuck up spoilt snob-nosed jerk – but then there's Lilo… and her blue ecto-whatsamecallit dog. He stares at me, like he wants to eat me… and contents himself with eating the junk mail. I mean, there's dogs that chase me half way 'round the island, just for a chomp on the backside, but he seems… different. Like he's trying to figure out what makes me tick. I tell ya, that's not normal for a dog."  
A loud 'ow!' rung through the house.  
"Eh, what's Merwin up to this time?"  
"Oh, the usual, SETI-ing… he's trying to latch on to alien television frequencies."  
"Ah. Good luck with that. But, as I said, even _with_ Merwin, you two are about the most normal people on this lolo circuit. Well, see ya 'round."  
"Yeah."  
Dean closed the door after Joe and flicked through the mail.  
"Eh, the rent's come in. $120."  
"K," replied Merwin, not looking up from the innards of the TV.  
"And we've got this weeks' _Gazette_."  
"Cool… hey, I've almost finished…"  
The television flickered for a moment, then fell back into staticness.  
Dean looked up from the _Gazette_.  
"Hey… hey, Mer… there's an article I think you should read…"  
"Not now, Dean, I'm busy."  
The screen shimmered for a second more.  
"…_to our where are…"_  
"But Mer, it's about…"  
"Hold on, Dean, I think I've got it!"  
And the static was gone. In its place was what appeared to be a news show, except the newsreader wasn't, _couldn't_, be of this Earth.  
He was orange in colour, with yellow splotches on his forehead, of average build, and appeared to be in his early 40s. He seemed to abide every law of nature about what the perfect newsreader should look and sound like.  
"…_Jookiba mysteriously vanished in the year 4107, Turo Central Time, just days after his famous trial,"_ the newsreader… well, read. In the box beside him, a picture, presumably of Jookiba, was displayed.  
Jookiba was… big. And… round. And… purple. And… had four eyes. And… small ears… on his cheeks…  
Merwin looked at the screen.  
"Yes! I'm finally receiving alien satellite TV transmissions! Free!"  
Suddenly, Dean remembered what he was about to tell him.  
"Hey, Mer…"

"'Aliens Abound In Tropical Paradise'," read Merwin.  
"It's by… some guy named Proud," Dean informed him, pouring himself a glass of milk.  
"Hey, wasn't she that girl I bumped into at that Wizard Kelly wrestling match?" asked Merwin.  
"You mean that one that stomped on your toe and poured punch over your head?" replied Dean.  
Merwin gave Dean an intense stare.  
"Yes, Dean, that girl," he said through gritted teeth as he put down his mug.  
"Dude, did she have problems."  
"Nothing years of therapy can fix, I'm sure."  
He put down the paper.  
"It says here that she stayed with three aliens for two days, and got zapped by another."  
Dean thought for a bit.  
"Hey, dude, remember, that thing we saw at the shelter, like, ages back?"  
"That thing that repeated rhythms of noises? That was over a year ago!"  
"What about that dudette that was with it?"  
Merwin opened his mouth, closed it, then opened it again.  
"You know we spent three months searching for her after that incident! I've memorised every _inch_ of Kokaua Town thanks to that _little girl_."  
"But this article somewhat describes the locations, like, where Proud was, and all that. If we find out, like, who has a hammock, or where this Bed and Breakfast is, we can, like, track where the other little girl lives. They do it all the time on _Jordan, Crime Scene Investigator_."  
"You know that's only a drama series, don't you? The computer software is far from accurate, and anyway, don't you think the love triangle between Bronson, Jason and Lilia is a little far-fetched?"  
Dean sighed.  
"Dude, way to harsh my mellow!"  
Merwin wiggled his shoulders.  
"Well, it's a good idea, Dean. We can give it a shot, and if it doesn't work, I guess we could shadow the mayor for another month."  
He raised his cocoa-moo mug.  
"Let's have a toast, to a successful alien capture!"  
He clinked his mug with Dean's glass as they both cheered a hearty "Hear, hear!"


	3. Pigeons and Euchre

**Aliens  
****Chapter 3: Pigeons and Euchre**

Elsewhere in Kokaua Town, the first rays of sunlight that marked the dawn were just reaching its sleepy inhabitants. Mertle Edmonds yawned, stretched, and arranged her many dolls in anticipation of another day of thinking about important stuff – like herself, how her hair looked, and keeping Weirdlo in check. Pleakley had just woken up and, upon finding himself on the couch, proceeded to shake Jumba in an effort to wake him. Nani was still asleep, it being 6am and all. Down near the dropoff, there was naught but an indication that two weirdly-dressed citizens were sneaking around.  
From behind a tree, Dean raised his head.  
"Hey, Mer, doesn't that look like…"  
"Yeah!" came a muffled voice from under a bush. "The seat where Elvis sat in _Blue Hawaii_!"  
"Y'think he visits it sometimes?"  
"Well, how else are the aliens going to keep the Elvis-sighters satisfied?"  
"True. But… that van over there… it's owned by the band they hired for the alien con. Maybe _they_…"  
"Don't be absurd, what use would they have for that annoying creature? C'mon, let's go."  
With that, Merwin stood up, the bush still attached to his head. A rather upset pigeon flew out of it, squarking angrily.  
"Hey, Mer, y'know what birds do when they're angry…"  
Merwin gulped.

Inside the van, a game of Euchre was in progress. One of the players was sitting on his piano; he had the appearance of being rather scrawny, with scruffy brown hair, wearing a blue shirt with an image of a purple planet with thick rings around it. Opposite him was a rather short being with an overly-large jumper and jeans on; its ears were curiously shaped, as if they were part of a loudspeaker. The thing itself was covered in yellow fur.  
The opposing team consisted of a rather wide character with an orange-with-white-leaved shirt, and another thin skinny dude with a green-and-yellow striped shirt.  
"Dudes, last trick," uttered the planet-emblazoned dude, who here is named Jason.  
"How'dya know we won't Euchre?" quizzed the other skinny dude, name of Dran. (Don't ask.)  
"Because I'm late for my meeting, and we need to get this over with," Jason replied.  
"Oh, your _meeting_."  
"Why do ya have to have your meetings now?" asked the large guy (Linus).  
"Never mind, let's just get on with the game," Dran groaned.  
Linus lead with a four of spades. Jason put down a seven of hearts.  
At that moment, a piercing scream rang through the park, followed by loud squawking.  
Jason ran to the window.  
"Ah, just another guy scaring the pigeons," he muttered as he returned to the game. "Er… Dran, that smile's just creeping me out right now."  
"Oh. Right, remove cheesy creepy smile from face: check."  
Dran put down a jack of hearts.  
"Wow. I wonder how you got that," said Jason monotonously as the yellow guy opposite him (Sample) put down a jack of diamonds.  
"Wha… bu… b…"  
"We win, eleven to nine," he said, hi-fiving Sample.

About half a kilometre away, Ms. Hasagawa was on her daily-before-work-morning-stroll-through-the-park.  
Whence she heard a loud muffled sound, she turned towards it and strained her ears.  
There were actually two sounds, one that sounded like "waaaah" and another that sounded like "wah-wah-wah-wah." The first one was only made by three… no, two people. The other sounded as if it was a whole crowd of people.  
Hasagawa squinted into the horizon. She could make out little objects heading her way.  
_They're going quite fast, I better move out of the way_, thought she.  
And so she edged her way off the path, and just in time; for as she looked on, two dudes rushed past, chased by a flock of birds of some description. These dudes had some type of white liquid splattered over them.  
Ms. Hasagawa adjusted her glasses. Perhaps they were painters.  
She waved to them, and continued on her way.

"Well, we know they're not _there_," muttered Merwin, washing out his hair with a hose.  
"Dude, that was awesome," said Dean, wringing his shirt out.  
"That may be, but we can't let mere birds stop us. We've got to infiltrate the alien society, learn their secrets, and capture them!"  
"And we've gotta get some walkie talkies. My mum won't let us borrow hers after the last incident."  
"Good point, I'll swing by Don Voe Electronics later," Merwin said, adjusting his glasses. "I don't know what she was afraid of, we got them out of the goat eventually, and they worked perfectly. Though we could never quite remove the smell…"  
"Well, it was pretty bad," Dean pointed out.  
"All the same, you could still use it, and if you hang air refreshners on them you can hardly notice the smell, and it would go away after two or three months anyway."  
"Well, I'm going to take a shower," said Dean as he opened the door.  
"And I'll figure out where we should look next. We _will_ find these aliens!"  
"You do that," muttered Dean, smiling to himself.


	4. The Curse of Journalism

**Aliens  
****Chapter 4: The Curse of Journalism**

Lilo walked through the lounge and made for the door.  
"Er... I would not be doing that if I were you," muttered Jumba from the couch.  
She shrugged her shoulders and turned the handle.  
Instantly, half-a-dozen microphones were shoved in her face, protruding from the arms of the army of journalists and reporters at the door.  
"Ms. Pelekai, is it true that..."  
"What have you to say..."  
"About the existence of aliens..."  
Lilo slammed the door shut and rushed into the lounge.  
"Jumba, there's millions of newspeople and cameras and they're after our blood and…"  
"We know."  
"What do you mean, w..."  
But she stopped, for Jumba had been replaced with five more reporters.  
Lilo screamed and ran for the laundry.  
The laundry was no longer there.  
Instead, there was a laboratory; in the center was the lifeless body of Stitch; surrounding him were thirteen scientists, all prodding the body, and one grabbed a chainsaw, and swung it down...  
Lilo screamed again.

But when she looked around, what she saw was not the laboratory, but her own bedroom.  
"I've gotta stop eating avocados before bedtime," she muttered to herself sleepily, rubbing her eyes.  
Wiping her forehead, she went to examine herself in the mirror to make sure she didn't turn into a pumpkin or something. When she didn't, she quickly changed into a green dress and hoped onto the lift.

"We've gotta get that article retracted!" Lilo clamoured as she ran into the kitchen.  
Pleakley, looking up from his bowl of oatmeal, slowly shook his head as he brandished the latest edition of the _Kokaua Town Gazette_.  
"What! Come on, Stitch, no-one must read this!"  
Stitch moaned. "But... but... breakfast!"  
"There'll be time for breakfast later. We've got to act fast, or..."  
"And how do you suppose you do that?" Pleakley asked, trying to hold down a laugh. "It's not like you can just run 'round the island and grab _every_ copy, it's just preposterous!"  
Lilo smiled back at him.  
"Er... I was just kidding... y'know... with the joke..."  
But his plea was left unheeded as Lilo rushed to the front doorway. Stitch quickly grabbed a bowl of cornflakes and gulped it down, spilling a minute amount of milk on the ground, then proceeded out the door, paying no attention to Pleakley's mutterings about a previously clean floor.

Somewhere else, in a rather darkened room, a monitor flicked to life.  
A floppy drive clunked.  
A hard disk churned.  
A computer froze.  
"Darn computer! '_panic: we are hanging here…_'? What type of error message is that!"  
A thump signified the reset button being pressed, while a loud beeping noise indicated the success of the Power-On Self Test.  
A single note rang through the empty voids of the room. Upon the screen appeared a single progress bar and what seemed to be a spinning beach ball.  
The lonely being sighed and rested his head in his hands while he waited for the system to load.

Meanwhile, Merwin was walking down Main Road East, which ran directly through Kokaua Town's CBD. Stopping in front of Mrs' Hasagawa's store, he sniffed the air rather deeply.  
"Ah, smell that! It's the smell of discovery, adventure and…"  
"Actually, I think it was me. Sometimes gastric emissions…"  
Abruptly, Merwin heard a noise. It sounded… noisy.  
"Hey, Dean!"  
But Dean was lost in his own thoughts, mostly pertaining to the smell Merwin claimed to have smelt.  
"… and I never know."  
"Dean!"  
"Y'know, I shouldn't have had that grande-sized tortilla on the way up…"  
"_Dean_!"  
"Huh?"  
"Suspicious noise at two o'clock."  
"But it's 8:27…"  
"I meant… oh, never mind. See those trees over there?"  
"Yeah, the park's on the other side. So?"  
"I heard someone talking about shields. And the only… _things_ that talk about shields are aliens!"  
"They could be a couple of Trekkers…"  
But Merwin was already making his way to the entrance to the zoological park, and so didn't hear this last remark. Dean grudgingly followed.

"I still don't get why _I_ have to come along!" wined 625.  
"This is the only leave I've gotten all year!" Gantu replied, waving his hand. "Besides, you've been begging me to take you to a zoo since that incident with the Emperor penguins!"  
"Hey, it wasn't my fault they escaped," 625 retorted, slightly annoyed. "They shoulda put a 'Slippery When Wet' sign out, maybe I wouldn't have lost balance."  
"Well, that doesn't matter right now," said Gantu boldly. "We're here to relax, drink ice-cold sodas and laugh at the ridiculous earth-fauna and flora."  
"I'll be at the snack bar," muttered 625. Gantu groaned.


	5. Dark, Tall and Evil

**Aliens  
****Chapter 5: Dark, Tall and Evil**

"Darn it, why won't you work?"  
Encompassed in shadows, a lone figure kicked the system stack of the malfunctioning computer. This did nothing to ease his anger; indeed, now he had to deal with the pain of a throbbing toe as well.  
Having booted up, the computer was now displaying an error about 'no wireless hubs in range', or something like that. Where was the ID number of the guy who had set up the network?  
Thumbing through a rolodex, he found the appropriate card and dialled the phone.

Mark Evens loved his new job.  
He was the freshman technology consultant at Evihill Incorporated. The food was great, the income wasn't half bad, and the employees (or 'minions', as they preferred to call themselves) were quite friendly, although, for some reason, they all wore red jumpsuits.  
He was just telling his co-workers at the water cooler how many forum posters it took to change a light bulb when his headset started ringing.  
"Er… sorry, I've gotta take this," he muttered, pressing a button on the side of the receiver.  
"Hello, Mr. Evens," fluttered a soft voice into his ears.  
"Hi, Boss." Mark wondered why he was calling.  
"You're the guy who installed the wireless network, correct?"  
"Yes, I am."  
"Well, I just called to notify you that my computer is not picking it up."  
Mark was perplexed, to say the least, as he had logged on to the company intranet moments ago.  
"Well, I could come down and take a look…"  
"Oh, that won't be necessary."  
Mark started tapping his foot on the floor, conjecturing what this meant. Or, at least, he would have, were there a floor to tap his foot upon.  
Quickly, he grabbed the edge of the circular hole that had appeared under what had been where he was standing moments before, and pulled himself up. He then began to run, as hole after hole opened up behind him.  
"Please… another… chance!" he yelled as he ran. He could hear the laughter of the people around him through one ear, pointing and grasping their sides, and the chuckling of the boss through the other, which somehow made the ordeal much worse.  
"Why should I give you another chance?" the Boss asked.  
"Because… I… can… fix… it!"  
"Well… I shall give you one chance."  
Mark dared to glance behind him; sure enough, the holes were no longer following him like a diseased rat after cheese.  
"I'll get right on it," he gasped, clutching the stitch on his chest and wondering why he ever thought this job was going to be easy.

"Stitch, I didn't mean that!"  
As Lilo watched helplessly, Stitch tried to wrestle a newspaper away from a rather old lady; she was straining to keep hold of her precious Funnies section.  
From out of nowhere, she pulled out her walking stick.  
"Look out, Stitch!"  
Too late, for a BAM! echoed throughout the trailer park. Stitch, rather dazed by the blow, started stumbling around, criss-crossing his feet, before tripping and falling into a puddle of mud.  
"You're meant to _ask_ them first," Lilo tutted, running up to him as he tried to pull himself up, only to trip again.  
"Er… soka,' replied Stitch, slipping on a loose rock.  
"Let me help," giggled Lilo; she grabbed Stitch's paw and dragged him onto his feet.  
"Thank-you," he growled. Lilo wondered if he really meant it, or if it was short for 'I could of done it myself, thank you very much'.  
Having gotten his feet planted firmly on Terra Firma, Stitch scampered up to the lady, muttered "I'm soohry," and presented her with some roses. Taken quite aback by this sudden change of behaviour, she patted him on the head, to which he groaned.  
"Can… I… have paper?" he asked apprehensively.  
"Well, since you asked so nicely…" said the granny, and with that, she extracted the Laugh Out Loud and Daily Opinion sections and handed the rest to Stitch.  
Stitch muttered a raspy "thank-you", bowed slightly, and ran back to Lilo, as if scared she might change her mind and start swinging the stick around again.  
Lilo took out a sheet of paper detailing the names of the residents of Kokaua Town. Scratching off another name, she looked to the next noun on the list.  
"C'mon, Stitch," she called, "we've gotta go to old Mr. Rhetorix. Now, remember, this time…"  
But Stitch was gone. Lilo sighed, and followed after him.

"Mer, isn't that the alien we captured at AliCon?"  
Merwin studied the large whale-like creature for a moment.  
"Yes, Dean, I believe it is. Take out your fake plasma gun!"  
Dean gave him a blank look.  
"Er…"  
"Don't tell me you forgot it!"  
Silence followed this exclamation, all the while making Merwin more and more agitated.  
"Well?"  
"But you told me not to tell you!"  
Merwin slapped his forehead, silently wondering how Dean had ever made it through collage.  
"How are we supposed to capture the alien if we don't have anything menacing?"  
Dean scanned the scene in front of him.  
"What about that little yellow dude over there?"  
Merwin followed Dean's finger to a small, mustard-yellow, fur-covered and rather fluffy humanoid being, sitting atop a stool in front of a brightly-painted snack bar.  
"Hmm… yes, he does have alien qualities," he muttered as the thing sunk his teeth into a beef, cheese and sauerkraut sandwich.  
"Kinda looks like my auntie's dog," added Dean.  
"OK, we _shall_ capture this alien, and then we shall force him to lead us to others of his kind," proclaimed Merwin confidently, promptly hitting his head on a low-lying branch as he attempted to stand.


	6. Of Food And Capture

**Aliens  
****Chapter 6: Of Food And Capture**

"Don't worry 'bout the boss, he can be 'bit temperamental at times, see?"  
Mark Evens was being consoled by a group of minions after his ordeal with the holes.  
"He has a terr'ble temper, but 'heart of gold," continued the first of the group, his namecard reading 'Al'.  
"Yeah, we'th all bin gibbin the run ath thome time ir anosser," added another minion, apparently named 'Bob'.  
"Nothing to be afraid of," finished two minions together, named 'Jack' and 'Zody'. Mark didn't know what, but something about them seemed to indicate they were twins.  
"Thanks, guys," Mark whispered, blowing his nose on a hanky.  
"Aye, no prob," Al replied nonchantedly, giving him a pat on the back (which, due to the largeness of Al's hands, was more like a thump than anything else.)  
Feeling confident, upbeat, and not just a little winded, Mark stood up, straightened his clip-on tie, and marched to face The Boss.

"That'll be one more salami sauerkraut sandwich special, hold the mayo."  
As the concession stand guy whipped up another sandwich, he stared pitifully at the yellow fluffball sitting in front of him. He could be having fun, could be with his (freakishly tall) friend, but instead he was wasting the time stuffing himself with food. The dude seemed to be troubled as well, as he was sighing unenthusiastically, as if he was brooding over something. The concession guy, of cause, had other things to worry about than the mood of his customers.  
Like, selling food, for instance.  
"One salami sauerkraut sandwich special, no mayo," he repeated, placing the specimen in question upon the table.  
The yellow being "eh"ed its acknowledgement, and started to consume his sandwich.

But alas, it was not to be; suddenly, 625 felt someone lifting him, then squishing him between his arm and body.  
"Hey, hey, hey, what's the meaning of this!" he yelled as he struggled to release himself from the grip of his captor.  
"We have captured you, alien," came the whiny voice of the fat guy holding him.  
"Yeah, so you better not, like, try anything funny," continued the sound of someone behind them.  
_Probably some hippie_, thought 625.  
"Wa-wa-wait a minute, I'm not an alien, I'm just some guy in a suit!"  
"Uhuh, where's the zip?" the whiny dude asked him.  
"Er… valcro?"  
"Yeah, nice try, alien. There'd be some kind of opening."  
625 tried to think for an answer to this statement. Something with style, with 'in-your-faceiness'.  
Deciding that it was too much work, he sighed his defeat.  
"Okay, okay, I'm an alien, big hoo haa. Could you at least have let me finish my sandwich?"

"No, you're not supposed to _eat_ it!"  
Too late to stop him, all Lilo could do was watch as Stitch swallowed a newspaper which, moments before, had been in the hands of a grandfatherly figure, one of those types who had aged well, and had many wisdoms to pass down, if only anyone would listen.  
But the old guy beamed, and shrugged it off.  
"Naw, it's OK, I only read it for the television listings…"  
And with a "bleah," Stitch had the listings stuck to his tongue. The guy adjusted his square-angled glasses.  
"Ah, nothing on but _Jordan_," he observed, perhaps wishfully hoping that maybe one more episode of _Hagrid's Heroes_ would air tonight, just this once. (Alas, _Hagrid's Heroes_ hadn't been on the airways since the early eighties.)  
"_Jordan_? That show is _so_ cool!" Lilo squealed.  
The old guy muttered "It's _okaaaay_…", while Stitch replied with a "bleah."  
"Oh, c'mon… it's got that awesome 3D computer program, and the love-thing with Bronson and Jason and Lilia…"  
"I know, I know, gotta believe in love," Stitch conceded. "But… um, that only work if love is… uh… how you say, equilib… equilibru…"  
"Equilibrium," Lilo finished.  
"Thank you. Er, otherwise, Bronson get jealous, then Jason get jealous, and Jason not notice eva… er, evidence analyser, who have crush on Jason."  
But Lilo giggled. Stitch growled, causing Lilo to laugh some more; she knew that Stitch didn't like not being in the know about things.  
"No, silly; that's the point! People in love do strange things for each other, and their focus of attention might be so set on one thing that they don't see what's under their noses. We, as humans who have done the same thing for love, find it funny as we can relate to it. You see?"  
But Stitch shook his head.  
"Love is confusing."  
"Indeed it is," replied the old man suddenly, then laughing as he saw the startled looks on their faces. "Well, I've gotten all I need from that there paper, and I dare say you two young whippersnappers are in a hurry, so, tell ya what, it's all yours."

"You're all mine!"  
Legs crossed, palms together, staring hungrily at the silver screen, The Boss quietly pondered his next move. Selecting a course of action from the thousands available, he reached for the keyboard; but stopping, for a moment, as if slightly hesitant, he examined his thoughts one last time.  
Suddenly, he heard a loud crashing noise; he spun around upon his wirly-chair, eyes wide for the source of the disturbance; only to find that his technology consultant had tripped over an umbrella stand.  
"I-I-I'm s-s-sorry, I'll j-j-just pick that up…" stammered the newbie, but The Boss waved his concerns away.  
"Don't bother," his soft, calm voice echoed through the cavernous room. Noticing a puzzled expression on the face of the techie, he continued, "I'm planning on throwing it out."  
"Er, w-w-w-what were y-you doing?" trembled the transfer, almost dropping several beige-coloured papers.  
"Ordering pizza," The Boss replied.  
"I-I-I-see."  
"Well?" questioned The Boss in a rather bemused voice.  
Shuffling his papers and inhaling deeply, he quickly scanned the first page.  
"Er… w-w-well, the fault w-was c-c-caused bb-b-by a b-broken w-w-wifi receiver. It s-s-should be f-fixed."  
The Boss turned back to his computer, rubbing his chin as he did.  
"Say, Mr…"  
"Evens, sir."  
"Mr. Evens, do you know what we do here at Eve Hill Incorporated?"  
"No sir, but I th-thought the name was 'Evihill'," replied Evens, twiddling his thumbs.  
"Oh, no, not at all!" explained The Boss, tapping commands into the computer. "The sign company made a mistake and, well… let's just say they're up a river with no paddle. Here we are!"  
A window appeared upon his screen; despite being incredibly blurry, The Boss could just make out two figures – a little girl, perhaps seven or eight, who had donned upon her a bright red dress; behind her, a small blue fluffy animal, curiously sniffing a butter-yellow daisy.  
Sensing that the tech guy was staring at this image, The Boss placed his fingertips together.  
"Evens, we do a lot of things that, for security purposes, we're required not to tell our lower members. Are you OK with that?"  
"Y-yes, I'm well k-known for my l-loyalty," replied Evens, with just a little hint of pride showing through his wavering voice.  
"Good, I think you'll find you'll do well here."


	7. A House on Flanshaw Street

**Aliens  
****Chapter 7: A House on Flanshaw Street**

"12 Flanshaw Street."

Lilo looked up from her 1982 copy of _Housing and Yard_ that she had found in a dusty old box in the attic. (Nani kept some really weird stuff up there; among which was a bottlecap collection, twelve left tube socks, and Great-Uncle Vern's false teeth.)

She looked at the house sideways. Then she turned the magazine upside-down, to see if it would look any more like the sight in front of her. It didn't.

The house, which looked as if no-one had tended to it in quite a few years, was coloured a bluish-beige. The paint was noticeably weathered, was beginning to peel, and a few dark-red roof-tiles had fallen off. Of cause, that didn't really matter, as you could hardly actually _see_ the house in the first place, being completely enclosed by deep-green grass that reached high above Lilo's head.

"Stitch, are you sure this is the house in the picture?" she asked.

The furry blue experiment grabbed the periodical and snuffled the photograph. Then he sniffed the air, looking for the right scent in the sea of smells.

"Ih", he concluded, handing the magazine back to Lilo.

"Well, OK," Lilo replied, a little unsure of his reply, but confident none-the-less. If Stitch couldn't figure it out, who could?

And so, with much trepidation, the two approached the old-fashioned metal letterbox, which was surrounded… no, nearly obscured by the head-high grass. It was a rather curious letterbox, the front of which flipped down in its entirety, and was labelled "U.S. MAIL". The two noticed its red flag was up; hopefully meaning that the land-owner had not yet obtained his mail.

But to their dismay, the box was empty.

At that moment, a shout emanated from the premises; at first, Lilo thought it was aimed at them, but it soon became obvious to whom it was referred.

"You forgot to put the flag down again!"

"Well, we can't _all_ be perfect, can we, honey?"

"No, of cause we can't, _Jess_, because, like all men, you've got to be so stubborn about it!"

"Fine…"

Just in time, Lilo pulled Stitch backwards into the grass; for at that moment the door opened.

And out came a man with a five-o'clock shave and his pyjamas still upon him; groaning and muttering, he flipped the flag to its downward position, and returned to the houses' interior, only to be confronted by what presumably was his wife about his non-commitment to helping around the house and the fact that his late-night television-watching habits were considerably contributing to the power bills.

"We can sneak it while _she's_ distracting him," whispered Lilo, and Stitch nodded his agreement; the two started to tiptoe through the grass, making sure to keep eye-contact of the house.

* * *

For a time in the living room of the blue-coloured house, nothing could be heard but the pitter-patter of little feet. 

Then came the creak.

"Stitch, shhh!" Lilo whispered from just behind the living room couch.

"Moka, shhh!" Stitch, in turn, whispered to his foot. Lilo giggled, and motioned Stitch to follow her.

"Now, can you see the newspaper?"

Stitch scanned his surroundings, straining for a sighting of the sacred scroll.

"Ih!" he replied in the affirmative, pointing to the tabletop of the dining room. Hanging from its edge was the rolled-up newspaper; upon it was the barely-distinguishable name of "Penny Proud", written in miniature below the letters "TTE".

"Awesome!" said Lilo excitedly, prompting a hushing from Stitch. "Oh, sorry, forgot. Well, now all we gotta do is…"

"Shh…!" whispered Stitch, as he stuck up his long rabbit-like ears, curving them ever so slightly.

"…_hat do you suggest, Oh Mighty Queen of Narnia?"_

"_Firstly… Don't. Ring. The. Bell. Secondly, you can start by helping me pack away the groceries."_

"_Fine... but why are they in brown paper bags? I thought stores switched to plastic bags back in the seventies!"_

"_I like to be environmentally friendly, okay? Now, that stuff goes in the fridge, those are the sandwich spreads, and that bag goes in the bread cabinet."_

"_Yes, dear…"_

Relaxing his ears, Stitch told Lilo what he had heard, filling in words he didn't know with those from his own tongue. Though Lilo didn't know many Tantalogian words, she got the gist of the idea, and so decided that, while evading the two homeowners would be difficult, it was not impossible. With this in mind, she beckoned Stitch forward slowly.

But they had not walked ten steps before the incessant mutterings that marked the being named Jess were to be heard edging towards the two; Stitch, having a much faster-working brain than was natural, reacted almost instantly, grabbing Lilo and bounding to the couch, the piano, and a strangely-placed pillow sitting upon a hutch dresser, before jumping and grabbing a sprinkler, hoisting himself and Lilo out of sight.

"…don't know why she takes this out on _me_," he rambled under his breath, all whilst trying to balance no less than three brown paper bags. "I mean, I have stuff to do." He tipped one of the bags into an old cabinet; the contents, five loafs of bread, spilled into the cavity. "I have to get _paid_, after all, and…"

Here, he sighed, and with a look that made him look noticeably older, longingly stared at an unfinished manuscript, that hitherto had been sitting unnoticed upon the grand piano that filled a rather large percentage of the room.

"_But we wouldn't take this… no company would publish this!_" he said mockingly, perhaps repeating statements made by a executive who had turned his work down; in any case, he obviously felt much resentment towards this company, whether real or not.

Sighing again, he proceeded to empty the rest of the bags, which all contained loafs of bread, into the cabinet. he soon left, and, in the wake of his lack of presence in the room, Stitch let go of the ceiling.

By virtue of his increased density and decreased surface area, he landed upon the floor first, allowing him to gracefully catch his companion before the ground did serious damage to her body. Brushing off, Lilo thanked Stitch, and then began to sneak towards the kitchen, with the fluffy blue experiment right behind her.


	8. Sneaking

**A/N:** And finally, after three years, chapter 8 is done! I got into a bit of a writers block as to exactly where I should take this chapter, but recently I decided to define the general plot of this story with more detail than just a vague direction, so that shouldn't be much of a problem in the future. But still, sorry about the wait! ^^;

* * *

**Aliens**  
**Chapter 8: Sneaking**

"Be vawy vawy qwiet," whispered Lilo to her azure-blue friend, winking all the while, as the two snuck down a corridor.

"Oh, yeah!" Stitch, having near-instant memory recall, got the reference immediately, and positioned his hands as if holding a mock hunting rifle. "We're… hunting… nus-pah-pers. _Ah-hahaha_!"

Lilo facepalmed.

"No, no, no… it has to be a quiet laugh, or else the guardians of the News shall hear us!" she explained diligently.

"Oh… right. Sorry!"

At that moment, the sound of footsteps were heard, clunking closer and closer. Stitch quickly scanned the area.

And then, spying a closet, he pulled himself and Lilo inside.

Thump. Thump. Thump.

As she timidly stared at the door of the closet, Lilo found she had another problem: a tiny twitching feeling inside her nose. And as the footsteps' volume steadily increased, the twitch was getting harder and harder to ignore.

Thump. Thump…

"Achoo!" she sneezed, and the footsteps paused for a moment. The duo exchanged fearful looks.

But then, as if by magic, a small furry rodent unburied itself from one of the many fancy rugs, hidden in a particularly dusty corner of the closet. Somehow, the brown puffy animal managed to squeeze itself under the small space between door and floor, and out of sight.

"Er… Honey, we need to rebait the mouse traps again," came the muffled voice of the man named Jess. Lilo and Stitch sighed a collective sigh of relief as the squeak-squeak of the mouse faded in the distance.

* * *

Step by step, the two cautiously crept through the corridor connecting the living and dining rooms. Each step brought them closer to their goal, but this came with a price - it also increased the danger of them being caught.

Trespassing was, after all, against the law, and although it was for a good cause, Lilo was quite sure this would be stealing as well.

If they were captured, she hoped Officer Kaiiko would go easy on her. There was no way, of course, that she'd be able to tell him what was _really_ going on, so she'd have to invent something. That'd be no problem, but Kaiiko was an officer of the law, so he'd probably take quite a bit of convincing to let her do what had to be done, even if he _did_ believe her.

Although, if she _was_ locked up, she could probably count on Stitch to break her out – indeed, he had already done so once before. Having the strength to lift 3000 times one's own weight often came in handy.

The kitchen door was open, thankfully. A quick scan of the room revealed no inhabitants, so Lilo continued to creap towards the dining table.

It was centimetres away. Lilo and Stitch slowly drew their heads level with the table. Lilo's breathing slowed and quieted – she dare not risk the Guardians of the News hearing her. Stitch climbed on top of a chair to get a better view.

She and Stitch slowly moved their arms to snatch the newspaper.

And then she felt someone push them to the bench, awkwardly banging elbows with Stitch, whose arm had suffered a similar fate by another hand.

"What do we have here?"

It was unmistakably the voice of Mr. Jess, which meant the arms probably belonged to him as well. Lilo and Stitch both slowly twisted their bodies so they could look at the grizzled man face to face.

"Er, hi there!" exclaimed Lilo, a little too loudly. "We were just going to… read the newspaper!"

"Ih!" said Stitch, nodding. Then, remembering he was supposed to be a dog, he corrected himself. "Er, woof!"

"And then we'd just be on our way. Right, Stitch?"

"Woof!" said Stitch, panting exaggeratedly.

Mr. Jess raised an eyebrow, but nether-the-less removed his hands from the pair's arms.

"Okay, kid, what are you really doing here? I promise I won't laugh."

He smiled a large grin, perhaps in an attempt to show that his intentions were good.

Lilo didn't buy it.

A change in plan was in order – instead of inventing something on the long ride to the police station, she'd have to think of something now, least she not see the light of day again. She thought for a few seconds, eventually deciding that a redacted version of the truth would be a good idea.

"We're doing a recall! There was something wrong with the newspapers, so we're collecting them up and publishing new ones."

Mr. Jess put his hands on his hips, smirking slightly.

"What was the mistake?"

Drat. This guy was smarter than he looked.

"Er… a short science story got published to the front page, and we're worried people will think it's real and bring alien hunters and stuff." There, that should be convincing.

But Mr. Jess was not convinced. He lowered his head so that it was level with Lilo, which set it almost at a ninety-degree bow.

"So, why'd they send you?" he asked, ruffling the top of her hair. Stitch growled – Lilo didn't think he liked this man very much.

"I know one of the delivery men, and all the delivery workers were on break." That was kind of true – she _did_ know the mailman who delivered the _Gazette_, but only incidentally, and since they worked on contract, they were on break pretty much all the time.

"Don't mailmen work on contract?" asked Mr. Jess. Wow, he was _good_.

"_I think he's on to us,_" Lilo whispered to Stitch.

"_I can still hear you,_" Jess whispered back. Not only was he good, he had Stitch-hearing or something! He _had_ to be a CIA agent – working undercover, of course.

"_Do you think we can tell him the truth? He could be a spy for the government._"

"I'm not a spy for the government – I'm just an out-of-work writer," said Mr. Jess.

"Exactly what a spy for the government would say!" retorted Lilo. Mr. Jess laughed a bit. Obviously fake laughter, so as to lead the two off the trail!

Stitch walked up to Lilo and sniffed the air around him for a bit. Then he sniffed his pocket. Then he grabbed a leather wallet from it, sniffed it a bit, and placed it back. And then he crawled up the man's back and sniffed his hair. And then he jumped down and turned to Lilo.

"Naga spy," he said.

"Can we trust him?" asked Lilo.

Stitch sniffed a bit more.

"Ih."

"Although I'm not sure I can trust _you two_," said Mr. Jess, looking at his wallet. "I had more money than _that_."

Stitch, in a rather obvious manner, whistled a happy tune in an obvious attempt to act normal. It obviously didn't work, for obvious reasons.

"Stitch, give the man his money back," Lilo told him, with a hint of chiding in her voice.

"Soka," said Stitch, and with that he gave several green notes back to him.

"Thank you," said Mr. Jess.

Lilo turned to the man.

"Okay, Mr. Jess – if that is indeed your real name. Do you promise to not tell anyone the following information contained forthwith in this conversation, or else really really bad things will happen?"

"Yes, I do," said Mr. Jess, obviously amused. "Now, what are you two doing in my house stealing newspapers?"

Lilo glanced both ways twice, to make doubly sure the coast was clear.

"Hundreds of aliens experiments, like Stitch here, landed on Hawaii a few years ago. But my friend Penny published a report in a newsletter about the aliens, and to protect them from alien hunters we gotta collect all the newspapers so they don't read about 'em!"

Jess laughed again. "Doesn't sound like much of a friend!"

"Well, I kinda pressed her to do it." Lilo sighed. "I was thinking about the tourists it'd bring to my uncle and aunt's Bed and Not Breakfast-"

"_Not_ Breakfast?"

"Well, it doesn't have any breakfasts. _Anyway_," she continued, glaring at Mr. Jess in a way she thought suggested he keep his questions to the end, "I was thinking of the good things, and not the bad things. I mean, I can't imagine what Area 51'd do if they found _real_ aliens! They'd probably lock them up! Or worse."

"Well, now you know," Mr. Jess said with a smirk. "And knowing is half the…"

A fierce look from Stitch stopped him from finishing the statement. Lilo didn't know _why_ he was glaring, but it had to have been a reference to something. Probably something terrible and evil.

"You know what," said Mr. Jess. "Up until now, I was having a rather lousy day, and you guys just made it for me. I only read the classifieds nowadays anyway - here, have the rest."

And with that, he extracted a good chunk of the paper and gave the rest to Lilo.

"Thank you very much, Mr. Jess. Your service to aliens living on Earth shall not be forgotten," Lilo said, adopting what she thought was a very serious business-sounding tone. "C'mon Stitch!"

Stitch bowed to Mr. Jess, said "Thank you," and then continued with Lilo towards the door.

"Who was that?" asked Mrs. Jess, whose footsteps indicated she had just entered the kitchen.

"A very weird couple," replied Mr. Jess with a smile. "A very weird… very _quirky_… couple indeed."


	9. Sandwiches

**Aliens!  
****Chapter 9: Sandwiches**

"So," said a rather… rotund person in a red baggy shirt and black shorts. "Tell me, alien, who is your leader?"

Experiment 625 blinked. He had no idea who they were, or what they were talking about. And he _certainly_ didn't know where he was.

He looked around, seeing if he could place himself based on the surroundings. The wooden walls were wallpapered over in a dreadful shade of purple – that is, where it hadn't started to peel, revealing the whitewashing beneath. To the side was an old television, with a rather odd contraption attached to it, and a humongous cable leading outside via a hole in the window where, through dirt-streaked glass, he could just make out a ginormous dish, easily around the size of the room they were in.

The experiment himself was chained to a box (with rather rusty chains, he might add); those chains were also latched to the concrete floor via a surprisingly intricate mechanism involving a metal claw, twelve distinct hooks, and four chain links from a boat anchor.

"Not interested in talking, are we?"

Well, they had _that_ right. He was interested in one thing at that moment – finishing his no-mayo salami sauerkraut sandwich special.

He sighed wistfully. Some homeless person, or perhaps an experiment, had probably scifed off with it. He doubted anyone else would eat it after it was strewn across the ground like that. Maybe it was in the garbage now, making its way to some plant store where it'd pe mulched and used as fertilizer-

625 shuddered. He couldn't bear the thought of a sandwich so majestic meeting such a gruesome end. Anything, even being enjoyed by a man off the street or one of his fellow cousins, would be better than that.

"Ah, I see you're shuddering!" said the man, obviously attempting to be threatening, but failing miserably, mainly due to the whine in his voice. "You'll shudder even more when we bring out this!"

He suddenly thrust his arm into the air in some kind of action pose. Geez, this guy was even cheesier than Gantu's soaps.

He waited a few seconds. Nothing happened.

"_Dean, that was your cue!_" whispered the man through gritted teeth.

"Oh! Sorry, Merwin!" The other guy, a tall lanky one, rushed out from his position behind the experiment, holding in one hand a long silvery tube. He pointed it at the experiment.

"Fear us, alien! We have your kind's most feared weapon!"

625 raised an eyebrow.

"If you're gonna threaten me with an obvious fake, you should at least take the time to make it look _somewhat_ real," he said flatly.

"But- but-"

"What did you expect, seriously? _'Ah, oh-no, it's a plutonium PEU-36 explosive space modulator! Oh the humanity!_'" he continued, his words laced with mocking. "It's obviously multiple cardboard trapezoid strips rolled into a cylinder, stuck together with masking tape and covered in tin foil."

"What about your friend, the fish alien? _He_ thought they were real!"

Those words prompted 625's memory into action – he knew he'd seen the two before.

"Waitaminute – you're the two who put Fishface on display at that alien convention last year!" He smiled. "I have to give ya credit – that was some performance."

"Well. I wouldn't say… no, we're getting off the subject." The man named Merwin tapped his foot impatiently, and cracked his knuckles. "What about him believing it was real?"

"Oh, well, Fishface is just gullible. Plus, he doesn't have enhanced vision like me and my cousins."

"Cousins? There are more of your kind?"

"Well, yeah, sure, you saw e- hey, wait a minute!" He folded his arms. "Why should I tell you about them?"

"We'll make it worth your while," said Merwin, a smile forming on his face. "You like sandwiches, right? How about four Monte Crisco and _five_ double-decker salami sauerkraut specials from the best-rated restaurant in the island."

"Without any mayo?"

"Of course," replied Dean before Merwin could answer.

He couldn't help it. 625's mouth watered, and a tear flowed down his cheek. But then, he shook himself together. He had to be strong.

"No deal," he said. "I wouldn't trade any amount of food for one of my cousins."

Merwin and Dean looked away and muttered to each other for a few seconds.

"_Ten_ sauerkraut."

It was too much. _Fourteen_ large sandwiches from the best of the best? He couldn't turn down an offer like that…

_No_, he told himself. _You can do this. You have to think of something else._

"What if I pointed you in the right _direction_?" he asked.

Merwin discussed it with Dean.

"_If_ it leads to a successful capture," said Merwin, holding up a finger as if it represented his point.

625 thought about this for a moment. He could point them in the _wrong_ direction, and then, while their backs were turned, escape. It would be easy, and he wouldn't have to be involved at all.

"Deal," he said definitively. "I'd shake, but I'm kinda tied up right now.'

"Alright then." Merwin rubbed his pudgy hands together. "Where do we start?"

625 racked his memory. The thing that came to mind, for some reason, was one of the scientists at Galaxy Defence. He'd been an unusually tall Qweltian, and Jumba had always called him Flanshaw, although he made it clear that wasn't his name. And there _was_ a Flanshaw Street on the island…

"Flanshaw Street. You might find something there."

"Alright, let's go! Dean, take the alien!"

Dean unhooked the chair from the floor and picked it up, holding it by the legs in front of him.

Drat. He'd hoped they'd untie him.

No matter, he'd probably be able to slide out or something. All he need was for them to be distracted long enough to do so. And then he could take his chance.

He sighed. He doubted Gantu had even noticed he'd gone.

Not that it mattered; anything was better than the company of the Tweedle-Dumb and Tweedle-Dumber Alien Inspection Agency.

As they exited the room, he glanced at his captors, their faces grinning with determination. This had _better_ go well.

* * *

It was hard work maintaining a concession stand. People saw him and thought he had it easy, but he had to make sure his stand was clean as a whistle, as well as the area around it, otherwise he wouldn't attract customers. _And_ he had to make the sandwiches himself.

He brushed the last of the scattered bits of sandwich into a dustpan lid, then flipped it into a nearby rubbish can. He couldn't believe the nerve of some people – if that guy in the costume hadn't liked the sandwich, the least he could have done was put it in the bin. Or heck, given it back so he could eat it. And telling him what was wrong would have been nice. But no. All that hard work had gone to waste.

"Er, excuse me, sir."

The man looked up from his musings to see who was addressing him.

"GAH!"

Standing before him was a man that could easily have been six and a half to seven feet tall, if not taller. He wore a black uniform with red highlights, and had in a hoister a bright yellow gun. He appeared to be dressed in some kind of weird anthromorphic shark costume, although if it was a costume, it was one of the most realistic he'd ever seen – the craftman had obviously taken a lot of time to get the look of his skin remarkably accurate (although why was anyone's guess.)

"Er, I mean… how can I help?" He glanced at the gun again. That _can't_ be real, right? It looked like a children's toy – although one made of chrome metal of some kind. Who would go to the trouble?

Probably a prop for a play or some movie. Obviously the actors were on break and would get back to filming shortly.

He shivered. Even if all of it were fake, he still portrayed an imposing figure.

"I was wondering if you've seen a… well, a small person wearing a yellow costume around here. He seems to have wandered off."

"Yeah, he left a while back," replied the sandwich man. "Threw his sandwich all over the ground too. Couldn't be bothered cleaning it up, which is why I ain't manning my post."

"Do you know which way they went?"

The man straightened his posture and pointed down a path that lead past a nearby lake.

"Not sure, but I think I heard his voice coming from _that_ direction right after he had gone. I was in the back, y'see, and…"

"Okay, thanks," said the shark man, and he commenced running down that path.

The concession man watched him run off ino the distance, and then walked slowly back to his stand. He had a long day ahead, but that would easily be the weirdest part of it.


	10. The Message

**Aliens  
****Chapter 10: The Message**

Jumba yawned.

Since Lilo's morning epiphany, it had been unusually, well, _quiet_. Jumba supposed they were out collecting up the newspapers, but still – it unnerved him.

There was something wrong. He hadn't noticed it earlier in the day, but he had been busy for much of it, and had only decided to come down to the living room a few hours ago, after which he then proceeded to doze off in front of the television. (Not that that was his fault - he'd not gotten any sleep whatsoever the previous night.) Now he had awoken to the unfamiliar sound of silence.

Definitely something very very… _wrong_. He couldn't quite put his finger on it, but something was off.

Where was Pleakley?

"Pleakley? Are you for to being here?"

Nothing. He was probably out shopping or something.

He sighed. He was probably being paranoid.

He dug out the remote and flipped few some channels, but it became increasingly clear that there was nothing of interest on.

He switched off the television. There usually wasn't much of interest at this time anyway.

It was at this time that he became aware of a small, rather muffled, beeping noise. His communicator was beeping. He ruffled around the couch until he had found where it had fallen, and swiped its screen to unlock it.

He'd missed a call.

OK, things were definitely strange. In the two-and-a-half years he'd been on planet Earth, he'd gotten at most twelve calls that weren't from contractors responding to his requests. Eight of those were from the Grand Councilwoman, two were from his mother, and two were from some kind of parole officer or something. He'd definitely hadn't been making any calls to contractors recently, and it can't have been one of his regular contacts, since his phone didn't recognise the number.

Come to think of it, the return number was of an Earth-based format, and the area code was somewhere in the area. How would they get his number? How would they even _connect_ to the subspace network? The nearest transmitter was orbiting Jupiter, and Jumba was pretty sure it was undetectable by humans.

The person had left a message. Jumba selected the message and hit Play.

"_Er, hi Jumba. I doubt you remember me, but I have something I need to talk to you about. I really can't say anything over this line, company's probably listening in, but can you call me on my personal cell? It's really really urgent – I mean, I can't stress how urgent it is – so please send me a message as soon as possible."_

The man's voice sounded young and energetic, but at the same time tired and disheaveled. It reminded him of interns who sometimes got burnt out on their first week at Galaxy Defence. He hoped it wasn't the case there.

And it _could_ be Qweltian. If he was, he would have come from the planet's North, judging by his accent - although, Jumba+-'d heard people on Earth speaking the same way.

The number he had left was an interstellar cellphone number. Very odd.

"_I wish I could call you directly, but the company disables all cellphones and… well, it's really urgent. Oh, and could you add to your message the times of day you'll be available for a call? Thanks."_

Jumba sat up. What was so urgent that _he_ needed to know about?

He walked over to his laptop, which was sitting at the dining table (he had been reading the _Quammian Times_ over his breakfast - eggs and toast) and pulled up the Federation's public access database. The phone number wasn't listed there. He then pulled up his old Galaxy Defence phone records – no one there either. He quickly hacked into the Federation's Bureau for Defence and Security's staff's records, just to check them – but they showed nothing either.

He frowned. He couldn't think of anyone else who'd want to contact him, and he was naturally suspicious of anyone who was off-the-records. It wasn't, after all, like he hadn't made a few enemies along the way.

And who was this "company"?

He guessed the only way to find out anything was to send this person a message. Since this guy already knew his phone number, it'd not be like not sending a message would protect it or anything.

First he tried a simple phone call.

"_The number you have called is currently not answering calls right now. Please try again later."_

Great. He was probably still at work.

He plugged his communicator into a dock at the back of his computer and tapped out a short message. He then set his computer to notify him – loudly – if he received a reply.

And then, on a hunch, he looked up Earth on the Registar of Non-Member Planets.

All members of the Federation had to register themselves before going on to a non-member planet, and there wasn't much reason to go to _this_ particular planet. Of course, unscrupulous fiends would probably not even bother, but it was worth a check.

_Jumba Jookiba, Wendy Pleakley, Sanak Zubar, Tareen Tabot._

Those last two names were new. Pulling up the relevant records showed they were both Plorgarians living on the mainland of America, studying frogs and their effect on the mosquito population. Or something like that.

He searched for them in the public phone database. Both of them were listed, and neither was the phone number he'd received.

He should talk to Pleakley about them. They might be friends of his.

Where _was_ Pleakley?

He tried calling Pleakley's communicator.

"_The number you have called is currently not answering calls right now. Please try again later."_

Urgh. Not helpful.

Pleakley sometimes turned off his phone. Usually to charge its batteries, but still, it wasn't anything to be worried about.

But Jumba couldn't shake the uneasy feeling he was getting. Something was _definitely_ wrong. His gut was telling him this quite plainly.

Then again, his gut was sometimes wrong as well.

He sighed, and walking back to the living room, he switched on the television. Might as well do something while he waited for a reply.

Maybe he really _was_ being paranoid, and this was an old collage buddy trying to get in contact. He did sound slightly familiar – like he was from a distant dream of a far-off memory – but he couldn't remember anything more. The theory that he was someone he'd met at the Academy seemed somewhat more likely than his other postulations, that was for sure.

But what was it he wanted to talk about? And why was it so urgent?

* * *

One of the men in Workspace C at the Eve Hill Corporation was tapping out things on his keyboard, his USB drive's light flashing at a remarkable speed. He'd managed to work around the surveillance software on his desktop - it was easy enough to exploit the program, and at that moment it showed he was working on an Excel document.

Which is to say, he wasn't. Rather, he was typing rather furiously into a command prompt. Or, at least, he had been; the batch job had been set up, and now all he had to do was wait for whatever processing it had to do to complete.

He sat back in his chair – these people really needed better security.

In a few minutes it had finished, and with a quick key combination, he closed the command prompt.

"What exactly were you doing?"

The man froze. His voice chat program had launched, and the voice of his superior was now speaking through his workstation's cheap tinny speakers.

Quickly, he switched the exploit off so that his actual screen would appear. The boss would probably pin the delay of his voice chat program appearing on their screen on network lag or something.

Not that it would matter, if they had worked around the exploit. If they knew what he had been doing, he was dead for sure. And not dead in a figurative sense. Dead as in the wearing concrete shoes and playing with the fishes in Boston River dead. Harp-playing, wing-flapping, halo-wearing dead.

He shuddered. He didn't like this society, but he _was_ assigned to them, and orders were orders.

He tried to feign ignorance.

"Sir? I'm not sure…"

"Forty minutes ago you used the telephone to call someone. Who was he and what did you want of him?"

_Oh_. He could explain _that_ away pretty easily.

"Oh, him? Er…" the man's eyes darted from the phone back to the screen. "He's an old friend. I wanted to discuss something personal, but I know we're not allowed to use the phones for extended personal calls."

"I see." Silence for a moment. "You'll be docked one week's pay."

One week's pay was well worth it. He couldn't risk calling when he got home – it would be rather late, and the recipient might not get back to him until tomorrow. And tomorrow might be too late for them.

"Yes, sir. It won't happen again."

"See to it that it doesn't." The voice paused again. "How is Project Indigo?"

"We've reached Milestone Two, sir, but QA reports there might be some problems."

"Problems?" The voice had a slight tinge of displeasure in it.

"Some of the bugs might stop working after a while. We've identified the fault, but we'd have to delay the project by a week to fix it."

More pause. The man hated pauses, but especially faceless pauses. There was no way to tell the emotion of the speaker, and thus no indication of their thinking.

"No. It's too important to delay – we'll have to risk it. Launch Milestone Three."

"Yes, sir." He'd hoped that he'd order to delay the project – that way, he could make sure his own plans worked out.

He reopened the command prompt and tapped out several commands, and then sat back in his chair again as green text scrolled by. What was he going to do?

Now, everything hinged on time – how fast he and others would be able to act.

And time wasn't a luxury either of them had.


	11. Location, Location

**A/N:** Yes, I know it's been a bit since the last chapter, but I acquired writer's block around how exactly the conversation between 625 and Dean was going to play out. ^^; Oh well, a happy new year to you all!

* * *

**Aliens  
Chapter 11: Location, Location**

Silence permeated the air of Gantu's ship. Except for the occasional beep from the computer and the light from its main screen, all was quiet and dark.

And then the sound of opening doors and elevators rising punctured the deafness that had existed before.

Inside the elevator, Gantu groaned. Waiting in an elevator when time was of the essence was _agonizing._

Once it had risen to full height, Gantu strode out of the compartment and walked over to the experiment computer. He swore he'd never use the thing for anything but experiment activation detection, but his own scanners had been put out of commission a few weeks ago by a certain blue furball, and thanks to the little girl who always accompanied her, Hamsterviel's experiment locator satellite had been destroyed the week before this.

The reason he hated using the object was, due to only having three buttons, the experiment computer's interface was the essence of grating. Anything beyond selecting and getting information on experiments involved holding down whatever button was necessary for a certain number of beeps. Going too far or too short involved cancelling and starting all over again.

Gantu flipped through the experiment list until he came to the ideograph of Experiment 625, and then selected it.

"_Experiment 625 selected. Primary function: destruction of primary centres of civilization._"

A lot of good _that_ did him.

Gantu held down the centre button for six beeps, and then released.

"You have selected the following command for this experiment: locator beacon. Press center to confirm or left to cancel."

_Well, well, well, this piece of flud's actually working for once._

The locator beacon, unfortunately, could only detect one experiment at a time, and only if it was within four-hundred meters of the computer. It was for this reason that Gantu barely used it – he'd have more luck using his repertoire of skills acquired through years of military training to look for the experiment on his own.

But now was the perfect opportunity – he'd search the whole island if he had to, and _any_ advantage would be helpful.

He had a good idea of what must have happened. Experiment 625 wasn't very much like the other experiments – he was crafty, cunning, intelligent; but most of all, he'd stuck with Gantu voluntarily. It was for this reason that he doubted 625 had gone off on his own – he would have at least left a message with the ship's computer, even if the only content was biting sarcasm. No, it had to be kidnapping, and he knew of only three kinds of creatures who would do such a thing.

Number one was other aliens. Both Hamsterviel and Jumba had made many enemies, and besides that there would be shady underworld characters that would pay millions for the destructive power the experiments would give them.

However, even if his sensors were kaput, his ship's navigational transponder worked fine. The transponder would have picked up the alien's ship entering the atmosphere, and a quick scan of the logs confirmed that, apart from the police cruiser and the ships of the Grand Councilwoman, Hamsterviel, and Jumba, the only transponder signals detected since he'd got to this Glocknar-forsaken world were human airships passing overhead.

Number two was other humans. But other humans weren't particularly that bright. No, it wasn't that – it was the fact that often, they didn't see anything they didn't _want_ to see unless it was staring them in the face. And 625 looked enough like a dog – a mustard-coloured dog who ate nothing but sandwiches, sure, but a dog none-the-less – that most people wouldn't notice, or care enough to notice, anyway.

And the people who _were_ smart enough to care were either in the government or absolutely _crazy_.

Gantu quickly ran a scan through the usual conspiracy websites (as a former naval officer he knew it paid to keep tabs on your enemies, no matter how nuts they were.) But, apart from some minor chatter about something called an 'Irken' (a fairy-tale if ever Gantu heard one), there was a rather surprising lack of alien sightings, and certainly nothing in Hawaii.

As for the government, he had a contact who was keeping an eye on things (technically for the Grand Councilwoman, but he'd been a friend in the Academy, so it'd been easy to convince him to send him an email if anything was up.)

The third kinds, and the most likely in his mind, were the little girl and the abomination.

Well, probably not the girl – despite her helping 626, Gantu doubted she'd have it in her to kidnap anybody. She was too, well, _innocent_.

Experiment 626, on the other hand? He may be _'reformed'_, but Gantu knew as well as anyone that the experiment was still a mischievous little piece of flud, and he didn't think kidnapping was above his new set of morals, if he felt it was necessary.

Which lead to the question, _why_ would he think it necessary? Leverage against getting back the other experiments? Information that could lead to a rescue mission?

Whatever the reason, he _had_ to get him back. With the little girl, 625'd be fine – but if it _were_ the abomination, there was no telling what was happening to him.

Gantu activated the beacon and, picking up the experiment computer, strode back to the elevator, pushed the 'down' button, and then spent the next minute waiting for the elevator to descend, submerged in a sea of impatience.

* * *

Experiment 625 wasn't having a brilliant day either. In fact, this was probably the fourth worst day of his life.

(Third was having the misfortune of hearing Gantu sing karaoke all night when he thought no-one was awake. He still had nightmares about that every so often.)

"So… you gonna get me out of these?" he asked the lean one (Dean, was it?), attempting to point upwards with his hand. "It's just, they're kinda digging into my arms and stuff."

"Unacceptable!" said Merwin. "You might find a way to escape. It just takes a few seconds out of sight to slip away."

"Besides that," said Dean, "it might turn out you have, like, the strength of a hundred and seventy men or something! And then you'll be like all 'roar roar!' And we'll be all like '_eep! help me, please, save me!_' And you'll be all like '_om nom nom nom!_'"

Merwin raised his eyebrow.

"However… _unlikely_ the circumstance of that happening, that _is_ still a possibility," he continued. "No, the prisoner shall _remain_ chained."

"Naw, you don't havta worry about me! Anyway, that sounds more like my cous- er…"

He mentally slapped himself upside the head. He'd almost done it again – told his captors more than he should.

"…that is to say, _closet-skeleton_ fears that inhuman monsters would come and devour our souls."

It was lame. 625 _knew_ it was lame, knew it sounded awful and unbelievable – indeed, it sounded like something the little girl would say. Not that she said awful and unbelievable things _all_ the time, but sometimes… well, her ideas could be pretty out there.

But if Merwin didn't believe him, he showed no indication of it. He merely turned and continued down the road.

* * *

It only took a few minutes for 625 to decide the silence was agonising.

"So, Dean, was it?" he asked, looking upwards at the towering form of his captor behind him.

Dean remained silent.

"Er… it's not Dean, then? Hmm…"

625 exaggeratedly slanted his eyebrows, as if he was examining Dean in close detail.

"You look like a Greg. Should I call you Greg?"

"Shh, little buddy! You're going to get me in trouble!"

"Come on, Greg, your friend there's far enough ahead that he's out of earshot."

Indeed, Merwin was about fifteen meters ahead of them, examining a sign post with deep interest.

Dean sighed. "My name _is_ Dean. Okay?"

625 smiled. "There we are. Now, how about loosening these chains, eh?"

Dean shot a glare at 625.

"You don't have to do it all the way. It's just so they're not hurting my sides – it's like you're putting pins into me!"

625, of course, had no idea how it would feel to _have_ pins sticking into him, but he reasoned that it must be _somewhat_ close to this.

Dean glanced back to Merwin, who was now using tweezers to extract a chip of wood from the sign's mast. "Alright," he said, putting the chair down, "but only a little."

He grabbed at opposite sides of each chain and pulled them apart; they began to sag slightly, so he pulled the end a bit to retighten them.

"Thanks, Dean, you're a real pal."

Dean nodded, gave 625 a meagre smile, and then picked the chair back up again.

625 wriggled slightly to confirm that it was loose enough.

He could work with this.

* * *

When they reached Merwin, he had placed the chip inside a transparent container and was now examining it with a magnifying glass.

"Hey, Mer, shouldn't we get going?"

"Huh? Oh, yes, right."

He stowed the container away in a pocket and set off down the street the sign was pointing towards.

"I was just obtaining a peculiar sample, with what appears to be some kind of _alien_ mucus attached to it! We'll examine it when we get home, though."

He glanced backwards at 625. "Well, this is Flanshaw Street. What, exactly, are we looking for?"

625 cast his eyes around. All the lawns were cut, there were hardly any trees, and no good hiding places. Well, this was a fine mess he'd-

And then he saw it, near the horizon line. Long, tall grass that almost obscured the house it surrounded. _Perfect_. Now, what was its number?

"A house. Number twelve, to be precise," he replied.

"Excellent," said Merwin, rubbing his hands together.

This was _indeed_ excellent. They'd have to put him out of sight so that the people couldn't see him. He'd wiggle out of the chains and hide in the long grass – and they'd give up and look somewhere else. It wasn't foolproof, but he thought he'd have a very good chance at it.

As long as nothing went wrong, that is.


	12. An Awkward Meeting

**Note: **Due to circumstances beyond my control, I'm currently without internet (I'm posting this from a Internet café.) I'll try and reply to any reviews as fast as I can, but it may take a while. Thanks in advance!

* * *

**Aliens  
****Chapter 12: An Awkward Meeting**

In spite of how dark it was, Michael Evens' fingers blazed across the keyboard of his laptop, his eyes fixed on its screen. Every now and then his elbow hit something metallic, and it was all he could do to stop himself yelling in pain – he had bigger things to worry about. Something was _definitely_ fishy about this place, and he wanted to find out what.

He accessed the company's wireless hotspot, using a backdoor that he'd put in _just in case_ – a user account that only he knew the name and password to, granting him full administrative privileges. He flipped through some folders, most of them containing mission statements or briefs dripped in corporate speak, until one caught his eye.

To tell the truth, Evens was only paid on a contract basis – he hadn't been able to negotiate full-time pay, and this had been the only job available. If he _did_ come across something, he _might_ be able to use it to his advantage. Not necessarily blackmail – knowing the boss, he probably wouldn't be able to get away with that _anyway_ – but something much more subtle might be in order.

The folder he'd found was labelled "Operation Zarploc IV", and was buried _deep_ in the folder hierarchy, nested in a folder named "Coffee Machine Purchase". (Entire _folders_ devoted to trivial items were _always_ suspicious.) It had several files and a few folders in it, and all had names that consisted of nothing but squares.

This puzzled him. The squares indicated that the kind of script the software wanted was not supported by his system font - however, the font he was using supported _all_ of the scripts provided by the Unicode standard. This was _odd_.

He tried opening one of them in his word processor. However, the program didn't recognise the file type at all – instead, it spit out all kinds of nonsensical strings that Evens recognised as the result of a program trying to interpret a binary file as plain text. A quick look inside with a hex editor revealed _no_ readable text whatsoever – everything was encoded in binary. Every document in that folder was like that – completely unreadable.

Unfazed, he tried one of the folders. This yielded better results – they were apparently PNG image files, readily readable by any image editor and quite a few web browsers. The first folder he'd selected was a set of pictures of the little girl and the blue dog he had seen on the boss's screen earlier. By the rather bland and slightly blurry look, he judged that they were taken with a long-range telescopic lens, similar to that the paparazzi used to stalkHollywoodstars.

He flipped through the sequence of photos. The little girl was carrying a newspaper, rolled up in a cylinder. As they continued, the dog got up on its hind paws, ate the newspaper, came back down, and continued walking. Not a particularily important event, or so Evens thought.

Another sequence was the girl and her dog driving across a rough dirt track in an all-terrain vehicle with a large, fat man and a extraordinarily thin lady – the girl's parents or aunt and uncle, most likely. These shots were blurry – they'd been going too fast for the camera – but he could still make out the long hair of the female adult billowing in the wind and the moustache of the male.

Why on _earth_ would someone be taking these kinds of photos?

A house in the background of one of the shots gave him some pause – he recognised the house as being from his neighbourhood. Some of this had been happening in _his_ neighbourhood!

The other folder was a bunch of scans for documents – except that the script was in no language _he_ could recognise. They looked official, though, and would probably come in handy.

He downloaded the documents to his laptop. If he couldn't use them as leverage, the police – or perhaps even federal investigators – would be _very_ interested in their contents.

He logged off the server and shut down his laptop. If all went according to plan, no-one would suspect a thing.

Evens had planned this out. If he'd picked any old broom closet, he'd have a hard time explaining why he'd been there. He'd specifically chosen one with no door handle on the inside, so he could claim he'd gotten locked in while looking for a can of compressed air to clean out his keyboard.

Ah, footsteps. Now would be his chance.

"Help!" he yelled, banging on the door. "I've gotten myself stuck! _Help!_"

"Hold on!" replied a voice – a young man who, from the sounds of his accent, had grown up a North Londoner. The footsteps rushed to the door, and the handle rustled.

"Got it!" the man exclaimed, and with a tug, the door opened wide.

"Thanks, mate, you don't know how long I've been in there," Evens said as he tried to manoeuvre across the various cleaning instruments. "Came in here for some compressed air, and next thing I know the door's closed!"

"Lucky I found you then!" said the man. "It's only about an hour to closing!"

Now that the door wasn't in the way, he could see that the man certainly didn't _look_ like a Londoner – indeed, his long forehead and relatively flat face reminded him of several people he'd seen inManhattan. He was also somewhat short – although not much shorter than Evens, if truth be told.

Once he'd managed to get himself out to the hallway, he held his hand out to the person.

"The name's Evens – Mike Evens, though some people around here call me 'Mark'. I really wish they didn't, though."

"Why not? Mark's a fine n-"

"First day here, I'd had a run in with a palette of ink. It spilled in some… unfortunate places."

"I see." He took Evens's hand and shook it. "Well, Mike, my name is… er, Senko Batola."

This just puzzled him more. The first name sounded Japanese and – well, he didn't even _know_ what to make of the last.

"Nice to meet you, uh- Senko." He broke off the shake. "If you don't mind me asking, what's with-"

"The accent and the name?" Senko grinned. "I've been getting that a lot. I was born in Berstin-"

"Berstin?"

"Oh, sorry, hang on-"

To Evens' great surprise, the man whacked the side of his own head – twice.

"Ah, there we go! Just had to get the old brain juices flowing, you know?"

Evens nodded slowly – he wasn't too sure what to make of this guy, but he certainly had at least _a _few marbles loose.

"Anyway, where was I?"

"Berstin."

"Ah, yes- sorry, that was _Boston_. Anyway, born inBoston to an American father and Japanese mother, who both moved toSalisbury soon after."

"Ah." He'd certainly heard _less_ believable origin stories. "Well, I'll see you around, then."

"Probably not for much longer – I have to see a friend about getting out of- uh, _moving_ to somewhere else. Tootles!"

Evens gave him a dubious glance, but he turned to walk back to his cubicle anyway.

"Oh, hang on!" called Senko's voice from behind him. "You forgot your laptop!"

He turned back – Senko was indeed holding his mobile computer.

"Ah, thanks!" He held out his hand, into which Senko placed the device.

"No problem," said Senko. "Although-"

He picked up a red USB stick that had been resting on the lid and now had fallen to the floor.

"Sorry, that's mine, don't know _how_ it got there. Must have absent-mindedly put it there, my bad!"

"Er… no problem?"

"Take care!"

"Er, you too!"

As he walked away, he silently wished that that had really been the weirdest thing that had happened to him today.

* * *

Senko glanced back at the man as he walked down the hallway. He couldn't quite pinpoint it, but there was something… _off_ about his story. According to the scanner built into his USB key, the temperature of the laptop indicated that he'd recently used it for something within the last few minutes, and as the area surrounding his wifi transmitter was warmer than it would be normally, he was probably on the company network as well.

He smiled. It could be an investigator. Or it could be a petty blackmailer. Either way, he could have an ally on his hands, if he played his cards right.

Of course, it could also be a spy working for Eve Hill. In any case, he'd have to keep an eye on him.

He'd reached his cubicle. He'd check it one more time, and then he'd leave to see Jumba – it'd be close enough to quitting time that no-one would care if he checked out a _few_ minutes early.

But when he sat down, he saw that a terminal window had appeared, and on it read four words, followed by a flashing cursor.

**"MILESTONE OBJECTIVE FOUR COMPLETE."**

That was… that was _impossible!_ While he knew that milestone two and four had been worked on concurrently, and while he'd known that the latter was nearing completion, he hadn't expect it to be done for _at least_ a few days – or more probably, another week or two! Forget the technological state of the humans of planet Earth, even _Qweltian_ technology didn't work that fast – never mind completing Milestone Four's objectives, just _clearing the space necessary!_

He shut down his computer and hurried towards the lift. Once he got outside of the company's satellite phone restrictors, he'd call the Grand Councilwoman about this – these humans _clearly_ had access to alien technology, and he needed to shut that down as fast as possible. And then, he needed to contact Jumba Jookiba _immediately_. There was absolutely no time left – absolutely _none – _and if he was interpreting the documents he'd found earlier correctly, Jumba's very _life_ could be at stake.

He got in the lift, and clicked in the ground floor. The lift shuddered, and began to sink.

_Thank Glacknar_, he thought with relief. If he could get to Jumba before Milestone Three was carried out to completion, he could stop this madness.

The light for the ground level flashed on, and the lift shuddered to a halt. But the doors refused to open.

"_Hello, Senko_," came the cold voice of his boss through loudspeakers installed above his head. "_Any news for me on the project?_"

"Uh…"

He looked around for any possible escape route. The elevator had none – no visible openings, no vents or tubes, no panels – not even screws or grooves. The surface, save for the floor level buttons, was completely seemless.

His heart sank. How could he be so stupid as to not have examined the elevator the first time he'd gotten here? Perhaps he'd thought the humans wouldn't find out about him, or that they wouldn't be a threat.

He'd gotten complacent, and if there was one thing basic training drilled into you, it was 'complacency is _fatal_.'

There was nothing else to it – he'd have to keep his cool and play along.

"Um, yes I do. Milestone Four has been completed."

"_Brilliant_," his boss replied. "_Tell you what, for your superb work, I'm promoting you._"

A lurch, and the sinking feeling in his stomach was joined by a sinking feeling in the rest of his body.

The lift was sinking. _The lift was sinking._

"_Sure, there'll be longer hours, but the pay is _excellent_! Hey, you could even make up for your lost pay packet!_"

-the-lift-was-sinking-theliftwassinking-_theliftwassinking-_

SLAP.

_There_, he thought, rubbing his cheek, now reddish from the whack he'd just given it. He needed his wits about him. He couldn't submit to fear.

"Er, while I'm sure it's a… _generous_ offer, I'm afraid I'd have to decline," he said. "Now, if you excuse me, I have a previous appointm-"

"_I'm afraid_," said the boss, "_this promotion is not optional_."

With a metallic _thump_ that echoed in the spaces far above his head, the lift came to a halt on the elevator shaft floor. And the doors slowly opened.

Beyond those doors lay, shining through the pitch darkness that permeated every corner of the room, a massive computer screen, almost blindingly white. And before _that_ sat the blurry silhouette of… well, what _looked_ like a man. The figure was at the very least huminoid, but beyond that, the brightness of the screen made it impossible to tell any other distinguishing characteristics.

This was the boss. It _had_ to be the boss.

"Come here," said the figure with the same cold harsh voice as on the speaker. Well, _that_ certainly confirmed it.

Slowly and carefully, Senko exited the lift.

"Don't worry – when I say you're getting a promotion, I _mean_ it – I'm not being metaphorical or anything," said the boss, not turning from the screen. "But before I do, I need to know I have your complete loyalty."

"O-of course," said Senko. It wasn't like he could say anything _else_ under the circumstances.

"Good," replied the boss, crossing his fingers. "Now, then, it's time to get you started in your new role."

All of a sudden, clamps sprung up from the floor and grasped his legs; a few seconds later, and his arms had been secured by clamps from the ceiling. He tried to struggle but it was no use – they were far too tight.

A robotic arm slowly came forward from somewhere below the computer screen; grasped in its' claw was what seemed to be an eyepiece of some description – one with a transparent display fitted in it, it seemed. Senko briefly wondered if the boss was going to try to throw some kind of anime reference at him, but he remained silent.

The arm was now inches from his face. Senko tried to turn his head away from it as far as it would go – as if it would make a difference, but he had to try something, _anything_…

But suddenly, a few centimetres from his eye, the arm stopped.

And then, the boss spun around in his chair, and Senko gasped.

The silhouette smiled – a horrible, jagged, _evil_ smile. Even though he could see not a feature of his face, Senko could tell he was smiling, for the simple reason that both his _eyes and teeth_ were _glowing bright white_, with the same intensity as the computer screen he sat before.

"Now, the difference," said the boss, "between me and a doctor is that when I say 'this isn't going to hurt a bit', I actually _mean_ it. That is why I'm not going to say _a thing_."

It happened before it fully registered – the very next moment, the arm had clipped the eyepiece to his nose.

For a few seconds, nothing transpired. He just sat there, wondering if the mechanism was faulty or something.

But then, it began.

_BZZZZZZ-_

Wave after wave of intense pain pulsed through his forehead, though his body, through his very _brain_-

He screamed. He screamed as loud as he could.

The pain pulsed through every fibre of his being, seared through every cell. It felt as if his body would tear itself apart, and for a moment he wished it would, because at least then the incredible pain that he felt at that moment would finally _stop_-

But the pain did not stop, and he kept on screaming.

He had to scream. He _had to._ Anything to distract him from the pain, anything to fulfil the vain hope that someone might hear, _anything at all…_

And his boss silently watched on, all the while grinning at him with his evil jagged teeth.


	13. The Futility of Escape

**Note: **Due to circumstances beyond my control, I'm currently without internet (I'm posting this from a Internet café.) I'll try and reply to any reviews as fast as I can, but it may take a while. Thanks in advance!

* * *

******Aliens  
**Chapter 13: The Futility of Escape

"_Now remember, alien, no funny business!_" whispered Merwin as he set Experiment 625's chair down. "_We know where you live!_"

Dean scratched his head.

"_Um, Mer, no we don-oomph!_"

"_He didn't know that!_"

If truth be told, despite their bumbling, they'd already managed to partially upset his plan. Instead of placing him on the verge and out of sight, they'd decided to put him directly behind them, thus blocking him from view while still making it that much harder for him to get to the grass unnoticed.

But still, he _had_ to try.

Merwin and Dean walked up to the door, and after Merwin had somewhat suspiciously examined the doorbell button, he rang the doorbell.

"_Jess, there's someone at the door!_" called a female voice.

"_Yes, dear, let me just finish stacking the spreads…_"

A few seconds passed as Merwin anxiously tapped his foot.

"_Jess, what if it's one of those publishers you keep talking about?_"

"_Alright already!_"

And in a few moments more, a somewhat dishevelled man answered the door, his brown hair ruffled and sags in his eyes.

"Er, excuse me, sir, but we were wondering if you'd seen anything unusual-"

Now was his chance. He started bumping the chair up and down; slowly, but surely, the chair started moving along the driveway and towards his freedom. He screwed his face up in determination as he did – now was _not_ the time to make mistakes – and only let his concentration slip to hear snippits of conversation, to use as a gauge for how much he should hurry.

"Well, actually, I _did_ see something – a little girl in a red dress and her, uh… exoplasmic detection dog, she called it-"

625 almost tipped the chair over with shock. The little girl and his cousin _had_ been here! Of all the dumb-luck things that could've-

_No, concentrate on getting out of this mess_, he told himself.

" – they were collecting newspapers for some reason, and I'd dare say they were playing aliens as well."  
Trust humans to try and rationalise anything away.

He was now almost at the grass's verge. Just a few more bumps…

"Why, yes, we _are_ their caregivers," said Merwin, "and you can imagine the stress we've been through looking for them. Her parents would most likely _destroy_ us if we don't get her back."

"You should probably make sure she keeps out of the blue paint," Jess said with a smirk on his face.

"Oh? No, the dog is a rare breed – that's his natural fur colour."

625 tried to quicken the pace. In his head, he'd imagined it to be _much_ faster than this.

"They continued up the street," said Jess. "You'd probably catch her at number two by now."

"Thanks _ever_ so much," said Merwin. "You know kids – you try and keep your eye on them, but they always manage _something_."

_Almost_ there…

But all of a sudden, the door slammed shut, and he felt himself being picked up again.

"Good work, alien," said Merwin, standing in front of him, apparently unaware of his escape attempt. "You shall get your reward _after_ we find the little girl and her… _pet alien_."

625 nodded slowly, his heart laden with flushes of guilt. Not even the prospect of sandwiches could lighten his mood.

He'd failed to escape. Not only that, but he'd failed his cousin – even if it was inadvertent, he'd still betrayed him.

He shouldn't had said _anything_. He was too clever for his own good – he should have kept his mouth shut, even if it'd meant him being spliced like a frog at a primary school science class. And now the other experiments were in jeopardy, and it was all because of him.

Of course, he hardly feared Merwin and Dean – those nitwits were obviously in it just for the thrill of it. But what happened if other alien hunters caught wind of _actual_ aliens? What if the two tried to sell them to other, less ethical alien-ologists?

Then again, Merwin and Dean had never succeeded in convincing _anyone_ about aliens, even when they'd had an actual one to _show_. 625 smiled a small smile – if there was one bright spot of hope, it was that these two's incompetence would get the better of them, as it often had in the past.

But still, he couldn't shake the feeling of great foreboding now forming deep within his stomach. It was almost as if dark clouds were gathering just beyond the horizon, ready to slip into view at a moment's notice.

* * *

Lilo, meanwhile, had no such sense of foreboding, nor did Stitch show any signs of such. They had built up a healthy stash of papers, all of which were now being digested by Stitch's stomach, where no-one would ever lay eyes on them again. That, in her book, was a job well done.

Before them lay the letterbox of numberfourFlanshaw Street. Gingerly, Experiment 626 rushed up to the door, rang the doorbell, and then sat back down on his hind legs and wagged his tail like the dog he was supposed to be posing as.

Lilo made it to the door just as the homeowner opened the door.

"Why hello!" said a rather… large woman with curly yellow hair, in a tone that sounded reminiscient of the one people adopted when they talked to babies. "So, what do we have here?"

"Ma'am, we're from the State Authority of Recall-Needing Newspapers, or SARNN," said Lilo, adopting what she hoped was an authoritative voice and pose. "We've identified your newspaper as needing an _urgent_ recall, and it would be in your best interest for you to co-operate."

"Naw, isn't that _precious!_" Turning around, she adopted a much more serious tone. "Frank, they want the paper!"

"_It's on the coffee table_!"

"Could you go get it?"  
_"Linda, I'm trying to watch the game_!" Frank replied.

The woman named Linda turned back to the duo.

"Hold on, you two, and I'll go get it," she said.

"_Because _someone_'s too lazy to do it themselves,_" she muttered under her breath as she walked down the corridor.

A few moments passed, and the sounds of rummaging things could be heard eminating from the house.

"_Dear, why don't you clean up your magazines once in a while!_" Linda could be heard saying._ "Or at least let me throw them out – you never read them past the day you b-_"

"_They're collectables_," replied Frank. "_One day they're going to be worth a lot more money than they are now, you know-_"

"_That'll be the day I buy a flying pig!_" replied Linda.

After a few more moments of shuffling, Linda re-emerged with the newspaper.

"Here you go, dearies!" she said as she handed it to Lilo. "Have fun with your little game!"

"Thank you, ma'am. And we will!"

And with that, she gave the woman a quick salute, and then proceeded to march back down the pathway to the road.

"Bark, bark!" said Stitch, and with that he scampered after her.

"Alright, Stitch," Lilo said, crossing off another street address off her list. "Time for number two."

Stitch made a noise somewhere between a grunt and that of a baby bird calling for worms.

"Oh,fine, Stitch."

She gave the newspaper to the experiment, who promptly gulped it down.

"Now, these guys are new here," she began as they passed a fluorescent-yellow 'For Sale' sign with a red ovular circle plastered over it reading 'Sold'. "They won't be as complacent as the locals – they'll probably be more naturally suspicious. We've got to make this act the best one yet."

Stitch nodded his understanding.

"Alright, ready… go!"

And Stitch bounded across the yard in the same manner as a rather young puppy might, and sat in front of the front step of number two, his eyes as sad as he could muster.

"Great job, Stitch!" Lilo whispered as she reached the door and pushed the doorbell. "No-one's going to be able to resist _that_ face!"

* * *

Inside the house, two men watched through the windows as the little girl and the alien dog ran up to the doorway. They were not worried about being noticed – in front of the windows was projected a one-way hologram of an empty lounge, thus easily hiding them from view.

The doorbell rang, and one of the men nodded to the other. They got up from the couch they'd been kneeling on, and walked up to the door.

Their objective was within their grasp.

* * *

Mike Evens smiled. He was home free.

He was just shutting down his computer for the day's end, and preparing to depart to his home, where he could work out the finer parts of what he planned to do with the information he'd collected. And since there'd be no way his boss would know about it until it was too late, he couldn't see anything going wrong.

The light from the monitor flickered off, and Evens stood up, stretched, picked up his laptop bag, and began to walk down the corridor. He wasn't watching where he was going – he was too busy thinking of the possibilities he could achieve if that information had been _really_ important. He didn't plan to do anything _particularily_ nefarious with it, like sell it to a competitor – but if things didn't go his way, it always helped to have a backup plan in the win-

_Boof!_

Evens rubbed his nose. Served him right, he guessed – if he was paying attention, he wouldn't have run into a wal-

He looked up, and saw that the thing he'd run into was very much _not_ a wall at all.

The man was at _least_ a quarter-length taller than he was, and his muscles bulged out of his chest like boulders out of a cliff face. He pulled up the sleeves of his bright red jumpsuit, and cracked his massive knuckles.

"He's here, boss," he said in a very deep voice into his headset.

"_Evens, Evens, Evens._"

Chills ran down Evens' spine as the cold voice of his boss whispered into his ear. He didn't know _how_, but the voice of the boss always managed to feel… _wrong_, as if someone was constantly giving him a wet noogie while pouring chilled water down his back.

"Er, sir?" he half-whispered through his own headset.

"_Meet me in my office. We need to discuss the terms of your employment."_

Mike gulped. That hadn't been part of the plan at all.

"Well, you see, I've got to get back home – my family'll be expect-"

"You have no family, Evens," said his boss. "You live alone in an apartment, and even there you hardly make ends meet. Now, I'd suggest you come along, or else you might find that not only your employment is at stake."

The henchman was still crackling his knuckles. Evens gulped and nodded.

"He's coming, boss," the man said into his microphone.

And with that, he turned and walked down the hallway. Evens meekly shuffled after him – he didn't know what was happening, but he knew it wasn't good.

* * *

The jumpsuited man led Evens to the elevator, and pressed the call button. When the doors opened, he shoved him inside, and then entered himself, standing in guard of the doorway as the doors closed again and the lift began to descend.

When it thudded to a halt again, the doors opened, and Evens stepped out, careful this time to avoid the umbrella stand.

"Ah, yes, Evens" said the silhouette of the boss, still facing his computer, his voice echoing up into the chasms of the volumous room. "I guess the only reason you're famed for loyalty is because you don't usually get caught."

"Sir?" _Surely_ he can't have found out?

"After out little… 'chat', I hired someone to install software that logged what files were accessed by what IP addresses – just in case. And guess who I found?"

_Oh, crud._

"I'm afraid I don't know what-"

"I know you accessed the Operation Zarploc IV files. And my guess is, if I ran a scan on your laptop, I'd find them snugly tucked away, am I right?"

He sighed. No use hiding it now.

"Yes, sir."

"And you were going to use it to negotiate better pay?"

"Yes, sir."

There was nothing else for it. He was about to be fired.

But then, the boss laughed. "Curiosity is fine, but blackmail isn't. Still, it's not like you were going to go to the _government,_ like certain other employees, am I right?"

"Er… yes sir?"

He couldn't believe it. Was he going to be forgiven?

"So, we'll let bygones be bygones. By the way, do you want to know exactly what Operation Zarploc IV _is_?"

"Er…"

He wasn't sure about this. Perhaps it was a trap?

But the boss did not wait for his answer – he pressed a button.

In a flash of blue light, some sort of… well, _vortex_ appeared on the wall nearest to the boss. Azure particles spat out of it, and just as quickly vanished into the air.

"What… what is _that_?" he stuttered.

"That, my friend, is the event horizon of a controlled-collision interplainlar wormhole," the boss said. "And beyond it is Operation Zarploc IV. Want to take a look? You don't have to go in, just peer through the aperture."

Evens looked from the lift door to the wormhole opening – but then, his mind told him he was being silly. If the boss had intended to do anything, surely he would have done so by now?

And besides, this probably wasn't _actually_ a wormhole – it was probably a projection of some kind. The boss _did_ seem to have a flair for the dramatic, and he wouldn't put it past him – after all, an _actual_ wormhole was impossible, wasn't it?

He walked up to the 'wormhole', and looked through it.

A blurry image of a large, grey-coloured room shimmered in the rippling surface of the aperture. He tried to squint, but he could not see much detail, beyond the fact that the walls seemed to be panelled, and the floor seemed to be a dark brown colour. If there was anything in it, Evens could not see it.

"Er, sir, the image is not very clear," he said. "But it almost looks like a prision-"

And then, he felt a hand on his back.

"Quite right – it's yours."

And Evens had the sudden sensation of being flung through the air; before he knew exactly what had happened, he had slammed into a wall, and slid down to the floor.

"Congratulations," said the voice of the boss, slowly growing fainter as his consciousness waned. "You'll be able to observe Operation Zarploc IV up close – in fact, you're now an official part of the project!"

"_Sir,_" Evens whispered, struggling to keep his brain working, staring at the foggy image of his boss on the other side of the wormhole.

But finally, it became too much for him, and he slumped against the wall, the world around him fading to black.


	14. A Welcome Reception

**Note: **Due to circumstances beyond my control, I'm currently without internet (I'm posting this from a Internet café.) I'll try and reply to any reviews as fast as I can, but it may take a while. Thanks in advance!

* * *

******Aliens  
**Chapter 14: A Welcome Reception

It was pretty safe to say that Jumba was getting _very _anxious.

He sighed as he glanced back at his phone, which was doing absolutely nothing at the moment – the exact opposite of what he wanted it to do. He had still not received a follow-up call from the mysterious stranger, nor had Pleakley called back – and calls to their phones merely repeated the fact that the call was not going through. And the worry was now affecting his ability to sleep – he'd spent the last half-hour staring at the static of the television screen.

Could they be related? At first, Jumba had thought the possibility silly – a fleeting stupid thought from what was otherwise a brilliant brain. But the more time passed, the more he began to think it, if not probable, at least _likely_.

There was nothing else to it. He sat back up, stood to his feet, stretched his arms, let out a big yawn, and walked over to the table where his laptop was cradling his phone. He awoke it from sleep mode, and then tapped out a search for the Earth-based phone number the stranger had called from.

Come to think of it, why hadn't he done that _first_? It seemed very obvious now, but at the time, for some reason, it hadn't occurred to him at the time. And now, Pleakley could be in trouble, and it'd be _his_ fault.

The search returned with a series of results, several of which didn't involve phone numbers at all – but about the fifth down was a Help Wanted ad, published in the online edition of the Kauai Herald.

"_Perky young network administrator wanted for large project interconnecting an office building network. Must be diligent and have a can-do attitude. Please phone Eve Hill Corporation, 555-2326._"

Jumba immediately launched a new tab and searched the name of the company. This brought up a website, giving a description of being a 'developer of next-generation testing and surveillance technology.' The CEO was, according to the website, named 'Dr. Joe Tinar, BSc', and he'd apparently been in the technology sector for the last few decades.

Jumba stared at the photo of the human. Something about him struck him as familiar, but he couldn't quite put his finger on it.

He searched for Joe Tinar, but for a man that had been involved in technology for as long as he claimed, Jumba could not find a shred of evidence outside the Eve Hill biography page, with the small exception of a Facepage account that had been dormant since its creation six months ago.

He switched back to the Eve Hill website and scanned the website for an address of some kind. '_Headquarters located at: 23 Alderman Drive, Kauai_', the website read, and Jumba copied that bit to his phone's clipboard. He then placed the computer back into sleep mode, and undocked his phone from its back.

He gave another yawn, stretched his arms a second time, and headed for the door. Perhaps, whatever this company was, he'd find some answers there.

* * *

A few minutes had passed since Lilo had rung the doorbell, and now she was getting impatient.

"Maybe they're not home," she suggested. "Okay, Stitch, you sneak u-"

But then, the door creaked open.

Standing in the doorway was a rather frail-looking man, with whispy white hair and wrinkles all over his head. Lilo didn't know if it was the age spot on the left side of his head or his cold gray eyes, but something about him made her feel uneasy.

"Why, hello there, little girl," said the old frail man. "What can I do for you two charming chaps?"

Lilo shook off her thoughts and pressed on. "I'm a representative of the Society for Prevention Of People Doing Awful Things To Animals-"

"Spop-datta?" asked the old man.

"_Yes_," said Lilo in a manner that suggested that he should not interrupt again. "Now, we're trying to rescue this poor dog-"

At this point, Stitch gave the man a terribly pitiful look – almost sad enough that Lilo wanted to cry herself.

_Keep it together,_ she told herself, and continued.

"-who has been infected by a radioactive virus that's eating him from the inside out!"  
She moved closer to the man, cupping her hand around her mouth.

"That's why he looks like a koala," she whispered.

She then walked back to where Stitch was sitting.

"Anyway," she continued, "the virus has only one weakness – it _loves_ newspapers. But the newspapers are _toxic_ to it! So, we need _all_ the newspapers we can find to save this innocent puppy! Would you?"

"Oh, of course!" said the old man. "Come inside, and I'll just get it for you."

"Uh- Nani says I'm not to let strange people lead me into houses," said Lilo, eyeing the man suspiciously.

"And am _I_ strange?" asked the man.

"Yeah, you kinda are," she replied.

The man snapped his fingers.

"What a… _honest_ young lady," he said. "Well, wait there and I'll get the newspapers. I'll even throw in a treat!"

"Nani also says I shouldn't accept candy from strange people," said Lilo.

He snapped his fingers again.

"Why d'ya keep doing that?" she asked.

"Nervous tick," he muttered. "Let me just get those papers."

"Hang on," said Lilo.

"What?"

"Have you ever killed anyone?"

"Uh- why?"

Lilo squared him up between her fingers. "You look like you might have killed somebody."

"Of course not, little girl!" said the old man. "Now, unless you don't want your newspapers, I've got to go get them."

"Certainly, sir!"

And the man disappeared down the corridor.

"He _totally_ killed somebody," said Lilo once she was sure they were out of earshot.

"Aka chigata chuuta," muttered Stitch.

"_Suspicious_? I mean, sure, he's kinda strange, but-"

"_Ih_! Megata iki sasa-"

"Well, if you're sure, I can't really stop ya. But keep hidden!"

"Ih!" Stitch said, and with that he jumped to the door frame, crawled onto the ceiling and out of sight.

* * *

It was an unassuming building that Jumba had come across when he arrived at the address from the website. The name "EVIHILL CORPORATION" (an obvious mistake) was embossed into a concrete slab before a sprawling carpark, although there were relatively few cars actually parked at the moment. The building behind the carpark was concrete beige, with many windows; it was also much wider than it was tall, with only four stories, if the windows were anything to go by. In fact, about the only weird thing about it was that it was in a clearing in the forest, a fair way from Kokaua Town.

On the ground floor, in the dead center of the building, was an aclove, with a pair of sliding doors at its end. Supposing that this was the main entrance, Jumba exited the red buggy he ha driven in to get there and began to trek across the carpark towards the area.

There was something almost eerie about the place. Jumba supposed it was the remoteness of the location, but he couldn't shake the feeling that it was _far_ too quiet.

Once he had reached the entrance bay, he peered through the doors so see what lay beyond. Unusually for a business, the reception was not immediately at the door; instead, a corridor was all that was visible, and one that quickly curved out of sight at that. The walls and ceiling were all an immaculate white, while the floor was a very light shade of gray; the one door visible appeared to be wooden in construction.

Jumba took a deep breath and stepped forward; with a mechanical whine, the sliding doors opened automatically for him – not an odd thing usually, except for the conspicuous lack of the laser-based motion detector he'd seen above all such doors so far.

_Well_, he thought, _maybe humans are finally learning to be hiding things properly._

The corridor seemed to have a grand total of three doors before the reception. There was something… _off_ about the doors, or perhaps the walls – but that, Jumba decided, would be a question to be answered at a later date.

The reception had the same colour scheme as the corridor, and, for a reception of that size, contained very little… well, _anything_. There were five or six dark-gray seats in a row, sitting opposite the main desk, which was painted white with a light-gray top. At the desk sat a fair-skinned blond-haired human woman, about twenty-five years of age, wearing a suit the same dark-gray as the seats.

To be honest, it was all starting to wear on Jumba's eyesight somewhat – what was wrong with a drab of colour here and there? But, he guessed, it was all the more incentive to get this matter sorted quickly.

"Uh, excuse me," he said to the receptionist when he had reached the desk.

"Ah, welcome to Eve Hill Corporation," she replied in a cheerful but professional voice. "How may I help you today, sir?"

"Er… someone from this company was leaving me a call earlier today. I was wondering if you were knowing something about it."

"Do you have a name?"

Not only did he _not_ have a name, but even if he did know who it was, he doubted she'd know – he probably would have taken a fake name working here.

"Uh, no, sorry – I guess he was being in hurry."

She tapped a few keys on her keyboard.

"Sorry, sir, I don't have any information on that call. Is there anything else I can help you with?"

"Uh-"

Perhaps he could glean some information from this CEO person? Even if he didn't know anything, there was still a few questions he'd like answered.

"Could I be meeting with Dr. Joe Tinar?"

The moment the name left his lips, Jumba felt there was something familiar about it that he couldn't quite figure out.

"Sorry, sir, he's in an important meeting. Will that be all?"  
"Er, yes."

Well, that was certainly a waste of time. He'd wait another day, and if no one called by then, he'd send one of his experiments to do some snooping. Would Houdini work? Since he'd be invisible pretty much all the time, that might give him some courage – and the best way to build that courage _would_ be to get him to face his fears. Still…

The feeling of… _wrongness_ returned to him, and he decided to take a brief look at one of the doors. It appeared to be an ordinary plain unpainted wooden door with a gold-coloured spherical knob – nothing out of the ordinary, really. He tried the handle – it was locked.

On a fleeting hunch, he looked at it from the side, and that's when a ping of realisation hit him – the door was _completely_ flush with the wall. He pulled out his communicator and scanned it, and the results confirmed his suspicion – the door was only _nanometers_ out of line with the rest of the wall.

That was _impossible_ with human technology – and furthermore, even those with the technology didn't _care_ enough to use it that way. This was _definitely_ fishy.

He turned to the second door, but he had barely made it two steps before he realised exactly what was bothering him so much.

The wood grain pattern on the doors were _exactly_ the same.

He scanned the second door as well, and then began to run down the hallway towards the exit. This data needed to be examined by his supercomputer – then he'd have a chance of knowing who had set this all up.

But when he arrived at the end of the hall, he stopped.

The entrance was _gone_. In its place was a white wall, just like every other wall in the facility.

"Uh, Mr. Jookiba!" a voice called from down the hall; a few seconds later, the receptionist arrived into view.

Jumba stared at her – how did they know his name?

The receptionist stopped in front of Jumba, and ruffled a few pages she held in her hand. "Mr. Jookiba, I found that call you were talking about."

"What's going on?" Jumba demanded. "Where's the exit?"

"Mr. Jookiba, I've been asked to take you to see Dr. Tinar," said the receptionist in the same friendly tone she had adopted before. "It's about the call – please come with me."

It took a split second to make the decision. Leaping across the room, Jumba pushed past the woman and began to run for the reception.

He'd find another exit, or a hiding place, or _something_ but all he knew is that he _had_ to get away somehow…

He'd reached the reception area again. All he needed to do was cross it to the other hallway, find a cupboard somewhere, wait for attention to die down, and then slip away – it'd be a piece of-

But standing in the entrance to the hallway opposite was the receptionist.

"H-_how-"_

"Mr. Jookiba, you _really_ should come with me," she said nonchalantly, as if there was absolutely nothing out of the ordinary. "Dr. Tinar wishes to meet with you at once, and-"

But Jumba turned and ran back the other way. Perhaps one of the doors weren't locked? Yes, he could see if there was another exit-

The second door was coming up. He lunged for it, hoping to make it before that receptionist caught up, and quickly twisted the handle – and to his great relief, the door opened.

But when he saw what was behind it, his stomach sunk.

Two men in suits were running down the hallway, each bringing a small pipe to their lips.

And before Jumba had time to react, he felt a pinprick in his arm; he began to feel drowsy, and his vision became blurred.

He drowsily looked at his arm, where what appeared to be a hypodermic needle had sunk into it; he clumsily tried to take it out, but the overpowering urge to sleep was now beating his urge to get out of the situation he'd found himself in, and he slumped against the wall.

Before he closed his eyes, he saw the receptionist hover over him, silhouetted by a lamp hanging from the ceiling.

"Don't worry, Mr. Jookiba," he heard as he lost consciousness. "You'll see Dr. Tinar soon enough."

* * *

"Alright, we're arriving at the top of the street," said Merwin. "This better be a good lead-"

"What do you think I'd be able to do, phone a friend?" Experement 625 exclaimed. "In case you haven't noticed, _you tied me to a chair!_"

"For all I know you used your telepathy powers to manipulate the human into saying those things, and we could be walking into a trap," Merwin replied.

"I don't _have_ telepathy powers."

"Exactly what someone with telepathy powers would _say_!"

"But Mer," said Dean, "it's also what someone _without_ telepathic powers would say."

"Yeah, Twinklehead," said 625. "And besides, why wouldn't I just send you to the trap in the first place?"

"That's a good point," chimed in Dean.

But Merwin just mumbled something about 'smart-alecs' and continued onwards.

A few minutes of silence passed before he'd thought of a response.

"You _could_ be leading us into a false sense of security," he postulated out of the blue. "You know, catch us by surprise and all."

625 sighed and shook his head.

"So," continued Merwin, "it's important that we maintain constant vigilance-"

"Hey, Mer," Dean tried to say over Merwin.

But Merwin was mid way through a monologue, and showed no signs of having heard his friend.

"-to keep alert, no matter how simple or secure the situation-"

"Mer!"

"-and to not trust a _thing_ this little alien says-"

"_Mer!_"

"_What!_" Merwin yelled, turning to face Dean.

"That's the girl! The one with the blue alien dog thing!"

Merwin turned to look in the direction Dean was pointing, 625 followed his finger himself, and sure enough, Lilo was sitting on the step of number two, twiddling her toes and picking petals off of a flower.

"We've got them now!" Merwin said excitedly. "Come on, quickly, before she notices!"

But they had barely taken two steps when a loud crashing noise emanated from the house; in response, Lilo immediately sprung up and stared into the doorway.

"_Run!_" she yelled at the door when she had ascertained whatever the situation was in the house.

A few more crashes rang out, and a few tiles from the roof came loose; finally, a loud _BANG_ echoed through the air.

"_Stitch!_" she yelled, and ran into the house.

"After her!" called Merwin, and he began to run towards the doorway.

Personally, 625 did not like the idea of running towards what could easily be a person with a gun or plasma rifle, but as he was tied to a chair, he didn't really have much say in the matter. All he could do was watch as Dean carried him after Merwin.

The sight that met his eyes was a strange one indeed. An old man was holding Lilo upside-down in mid-air; she appeared to have been knocked out. Beside him was a tall (and somewhat wide) man in a jumpsuit; he was holding a transparent orb, which contained an unconscious 626.

"Alright, that's done," said the old man, appearing to press something on his belt.

And what appeared to be a vortex of shimmering water appeared around him for a split second; after it disappeared, a tall, thin man, also in a jumpsuit and crouched over in the same way the old man had, took his place. He straightened up and stretched his arms.

"Now let's get these specimens to-"

But the large man pointed down the hallway, and the thin man's eyes locked with 625's.

It took about two seconds for Merwin to look back at Dean, a look of realisation on his face; in that time, the men had each taken out what appeared at first glance to be ray guns from some old sci-fi movie.

"DEAN, FOR GOODNESS SAKE, RUN!" Merwin yelled, panic saturating his voice.

Dean swivelled around and ran for the road that Flanshaw terminated into. 625 could not see if Merwin was following them, and at the moment he did not care – he needed to get to safety as soon as possible.

"_Get them! The boss said no witnesses!_" the voice of the thin man rang out.

He felt a whoosh of wind narrowly miss them; whatever the weapon was, he supposed it wasn't for firepower. Still, he'd rather not find out exactly _what_ it did.

But the next moment, the chair was tumbling through the air; it fell with a _crash_ sideways onto the pavement facing the road, stinging 625's head where it impacted the back of the chair.

For half a minute, he sat suspended in the chair, not knowing what was going on behind him; anticipation gnawed at him as all he heard was shuffling and low-toned voices. He briefly mused that if he could redirect that anticipation into gnawing at the chains instead, he'd be free in no time.

Finally, the tall man walked into view. He aimed the ray gun directly at 625.

He fired. And 625's world faded to black.


	15. Out Of The Frying Pan

**Aliens****  
Chapter 15: Out Of The Frying Pan**

When Experiment 625 awoke again, he wasn't outside.

While this fact occurred to him, the particular realities that made this fact important had _not._ This was due to the experiment having not fully awoken yet, and thus presuming he was still on Gantu's ship.

He stretched, yawned, and got to his feet.

"That was some dream," he muttered, rubbing his head. "Hey, Gantu, I'm gonna need you to pick up some parmesan, we've-"

It was at this moment that it struck him that the place he was in was very different to the ship he'd thought he was in.

"-run-"

The room was rectangular in shape, and rather large. Its walls were tiled with white panels twice his own height; the floor, with brown tiles about half. A frosted glass panel in one of the walls was the only sign of a world beyond the room, let alone an exit; behind which lay the vaguest form of what _looked_ like a chair. A security camera was positioned above the glass panel, eyeing them with seeming suspicion.

Apart from being very _large_, the room was also very _empty_. Very much of nothing could be seen _in_ the room, except-

"-out-"

A man – a _human_ – was on the other side of the room. He seemed to be unconscious, slumped against the wall as if he'd been tossed there.

"-oh _boy_."

What had he gotten himself into _this_ time?

He decided to nudge the man awake to see if he had any more answers. He doubted it – he seemed to be in the very same predicament – but it was worth checking, just in case.

"_Urgh…_"

The man opened his eyes very slowly.

"There we are," said 625. "Now, howsabout telling me-"

_"Argh!_" he shouted, scrambling to his feet and scrunching himself against the wall. "Talking _bear!_"

625 gave an aside glance to noone in particular.

"What do I look like, a Care Bear?" he asked, cautiously approaching the man. "Now, you-"

"You kind of d-d-do," stuttered the other.

"_Urgh-_ look, I'm not a talking bear, any more than I am Yacko Warner," 625 said, exasperation evident in his voice. "All I want to know is, where exactly am I?"

"Y- you mean, you don't know?"

"If I _knew_, I'd be calling Fishface right now, and he'd be blasting this place to smithereens."

The man's eyes widened in fear, and 625 sighed.

"I meant, as in rescuing me. You too, probably, if he found you as well – he's got a rough exterior, but he'd never leave an innocent behind if he could help it."

"Well – I'm not exactly innocent," he muttered.

"None of us are, but- you know what I mean, right?"

"I guess." He sighed. "We're in Eve Hill Laboratories – or at least, _I_ was. That wormhole could have led _anywhere_."

625 sniffed the air. "I'm… _pretty_ sure we're still on Earth – the air composition is right, and I can smell the soil." He sniffed some more. "Smells like… indigenous rock… basalt, to be precise, and lots of it – we're near a volcano, which means there's a good chance we're still on Kaua'i."

The man wiped his brow in relief. _Well, at least I know that he comes from Kaua'i too_, 625 thought.

"So, what exactly _are_ you?" asked the man.

"How do you know I'm not just a guy in a suit?"

"Synthetic fur doesn't get _that_ ragged," he said. "Besides, where's the zipper?"

"Could be valcro."

The man gave him a stare and yanked a tuft of fur.

"_Yeow!_"

"Look, I just got betrayed by my boss and thrown through a bloody _wormhole_," he said. "I at least deserve a break."

"Fine, fine," said 625. "I'm a genetic experiment created by the alien scientist Jumba Jookiba to destroy everything I touch."

He didn't seem to take that with any of the signs of fear he had before, nor with disbelief – in fact, he seemed somewhat relieved.

"So, I'm not going crazy!" he muttered.

"You could still be seeing talking aliens," 625 pointed out. "What's with the… sudden change of heart?"

"It's just- you don't _look_ destructive."

"Oh, I can be _very_ destructive when I want to be," he replied. "It's just that I hardly ever… well, _want to be_."

"Ah. So… what do you do otherwise?"

"Eh, make sandwiches, mock Fishface – it's not much, but it's a hobby."

"Well, if you're the best the aliens have to offer, I guess we won't have to worry about an invasion," he said.

625 didn't want to say that he _wasn't_ the best they had to offer – it'd been hard enough getting on speaking terms with him.

"So, what do you do?" he asked instead.

"Mike Evens, systems engineer and network integrator," said Mike Evens the systems engineer and network integrator.

"Experiment 625, or just 625 for short," said Experiment 625.

"You said you could contact someone to rescue us?"

"Yeah, Fishface – hang on…"

He rummaged around his midriff and, pulling it from seemingly nowhere, started fiddling with some kind of watch. Even's eyes widened slightly, but otherwise he seemed to stay calm.

"Not getting a reception," he muttered over the static-like noises the watch was making. "Either we're too far down, or someone's jamming the signal."

As he put the device back, a beeping noise sounded from above, and a voice began to echo through the chamber.

"Hello, 625," the voice – a cold, harsh male voice – said. "While you _weren't_ part of the initial parameters, circumstances have been… _altered_ somewhat, and to be honest, I'm not particularly upset you got mixed up in all this – this just means more fun for me." It paused for a moment, perhaps to let it sink in how much they were at his mercy. "You and Benedict Evens over there have until dawn to figure out how to get out of here before things start getting… _interesting_."

"Oy!" shouted 625, shaking his fist. "Who are you and what on the Talaxian Moons is going on!"

"But that would be _telling_, wouldn't it?" said the voice. "Now, I've got a busy schedule planned, so I really can't talk right now – and I dare say that if you want to see daylight again, you better get off your patookie and do something, sandwich maker."

"I _am_ off my pa-" began 625, stomping his feet for emphasis, but the speaker beeped again, and the voice spoke no more.

625 raised his eyebrow at Evens.

"_Benedict…_?"

"That was my boss," Evens said. "I kinda copied some company files to my laptop so I could negotiate a better wage."

"So, blackmail then."

"Hey, they were paying me a _pittance!_" Evens exclaimed.

"At least your boss was paying you real money," retorted 625. "Fishface's boss pays the majority of his fees in his _own, self-named currency_ – in other words, worthless unless he manages to take over a planet or something."

"_Really_?"

"Really." He sat down on the floor. "So, the question is, who exactly _is_ your boss?"

"I… um, I don't actually _know_."

"How can you not know your own boss?"

"Well, I never really got a clear look at his face – his office was dark _all the time_, you see – and everyone just called him '_the boss_'." He glanced at the experiment. "How does he, well, _know_ you?"

"I know less than you," he replied, shrugging his shoulders. "If he was an alien like my creator, he could be any _number_ of people – my creator had a habit of making enemies and dealing with shady characters, y'know?"

"Oh." The look of apprehension on Mike's face told him exactly what he thought about that.

A few moments of silence passed as 625 idly examined the ceiling lamp – a flickering light bulb hanging from a long cable from the ceiing and focused by a shade.

"So, how about we figure out how to get out of here?"

"_Is_ there a way out?" Evens asked.

"Well, Mr Dark-And-Spooky said there was, and even if there wasn't, at least we can say we tried."

The experiment stood up, waddled over to the wall, and examined a tile closely.

"One of these could be a secret panel or sommin'. We should start pressing them."

"Right," Evens replied.

He followed 625 to the wall, and very soon they were both pushing at squares, seeing if any of them would move. 625 covered the bottom set of panels, while Mike tried pushing the shoulder-height ones into submission.

It was not long at all before a shout filled the air.

"_W-woah-ah!_" 625 shouted, loosing balance and stumbling back as one of the panels slipped away.

As soon as he regained his footing, he called out. "Hey, laughing boy, I think I've found something!"

Evens glanced over at the cavity. "Uh, it looks like a metal bar."

The object in the empty space the panel had revealed did indeed look like a metal bar, or a rung of some description, not unlike the ones one would hang a shower towel on.

"Perhaps we should pull it – you know, like a lever," suggested Evens.

625 was thinking the same thing, but he had his concerns.

"We don't know what it does – it might be a trap." He shrugged. "But, it's our best shot so far, so might as well give it a tug."

The rung sprung forward easily, and when 625 let go it fell back into place effortlessly. But, apart from making a _clunk_ when it had receded back into its hole, it didn't seem to do anything obvious.

"Maybe it's a red herring," Evens said.

But at that moment, the sound of concrete shifting drew their attention, and it soon became clear what the lever did

One by one, the floor tiles at the far end of the room were dropping into the abyss below.

"Well, that's number twenty-three from the 'My First Big Book of Evil Genius Traps'," 625 muttered.

Evens just stared at the crumbling floor in avid terror, his limbs rattling uncontrollably.

"Let's see, there has to be a way out of this." 625 looked around the room for any suggestion of an escape route, but none immediately presented itself. "Oy, laughing boy, could ya maybe help me look for a way out?"

"_We'regonnadiewe'regonnadiewe'regonnadie…"_ was all Evens replied.

"Oh boy, this guy's worse than the one-eyed noodle," said 625 to himself. "Could you at least help me try and push in more tiles?"

Evens nodded slowly, and still shaking, sidled himself to the wall and began the task at hand.

625 had to admit he wasn't confident that this was a winning strategy, but it was the only one he could think of at the moment.

Tile after tile, the two pushed, and none had yielded any results. The situation of their impending doom had sped up their performance considerably, and it wasn't long before a quarter of the available space had been tested.

But as the widening pit reached the half-way point in the room, even 625 was beginning to worry.

It was as he was under the sole window in the room, high above his head, that he caught sight of the security camera, its single red lens staring at him. He glared at it back in frustration of it all – of this mess that he'd gotten into, simply because he let his guard down and let two _idiot_ alien hunters hold him for ransom.

And then, he had an idea.

"Throw me at the window," he said to Evens.

"W-_what_?" Evens gave him a look that suggested he'd said for them to jump in the pit instead.

"Trust me, I have a plan. And don't worry, my head's pretty solid, or at least much more than _yours_ is."

"You're not going to leave me, are you?"

625 glanced at the approaching abyss. "Unless _you_ have any ideas about how to get out of this mess, you're just going to have to trust me." He paused for a moment, and a little thought popped into his head, one which might assure his fearful friend. "Besides, there's something a little girl I know always says – nobody should be left behind."

Evens gave a small smile and nodded. "Alright, let's do this."

"Okay, then. Hoist me up and throw me as hard as you can."

Evens secured 625 around the waist and, with only a little difficulty, lifted him over his head. 625 could feel some hesitance in how he'd picked him up – no doubt he'd been expecting him to have been a lot heavier.

"Alright," Evens muttered to himself, holding 625 aloft like a football. He took five strides back, so that he was close to the opposing wall, and attempted to aim with his left hand.

"Um, could we hurry this up a bit?" shouted 625, anxiously eyeing the pit which now filled two-thirds of the room.

"Right, sorry." He began to run forward, bringing his right arm (which was holding 625) backwards to prepare for the throw.

"Three, two, _one!_"

625 shot through the air, far above the man and the crumbling floor below. Ahead, straight on target, was the window, his reflection in it increasing at an alarming rate.

_CRASH!_

625 found himself splayed across the floor, the ground around him littered with shattered glass. He sat up, rubbed his rather sore head for a few brief moments, and then pushed himself to his feet and turned around.

The view from the small room behind the windowsill had been _much_ higher up than 625 had expected, and he'd thus realised one thing he hadn't known before – he was somewhat afraid of heights. Sure, there'd been that time when he'd confronted Stitch on Gantu's spacecraft, but he'd been caught in the moment, and his brain hadn't sent any 'in danger of falling, panic!' signal to him in that case. Now, looking down to the speck that represented Evens and the slowly advancing hole, his heart had begun to pound through his chest, and his legs felt like they might give way.

"_Okay, pull yourself together_" he told himself. "_You can do this – he's counting on you._"

With his courage renewed somewhat, he went through his plan in his head. He'd have to change a few of his calculations, based on his up-close observations, but the plan was still viable.

"Alright. Don't look down."

He took a deep breath, attempting to drive out the nervous voice at the back of his brain.

And, banishing a final fleeting thought of what would happen if he missed, he ran across the room and leapt into the air.

_CLUNK._

The security camera that he'd grabbed detached cleanly from the wall, and the cording easily slid along with it – just as he'd suspected. Thankfully, the cable was not very long, and it soon sprung back as the end was reached.

When it had stabilised, 625 first gave it a firm _tug_ to make sure it wouldn't give any further, and then estimated its length – eight meters, which was just enough for his purposes. Then, grabbing the end of the cable just before the camera with his free hand, he dragged the camera back up the cable, crawled across the ceiling to the ceiling lamp, and tied the camera cable around the lamp cord.

"_Whatever you're doing, could you please speed it up!_"

625 quickly examined the fixture that held the lamp cable in placed – it looked much stronger than the camera's fixture, and he doubted he could pull it without snapping the cable. So he extended his claws and carved out a small circle in the ceiling tile around where the cable extruded from it.

When he'd scraped the last cut, the entire cable dropped – briefly but abruptly. This was good – this he could work with.

He slid down to the lamp, and gave the cable a tug. The cable, in response, dropped again slightly. Another, and it dropped even further.

625 screwed up all his strength, and gave one last massive pull.

_Down_ the cable flowed, and through the air flung 625, holding the edges of the lampshade – and, had they not been in serious danger, he had to admit it would have been quite exhilarating. Right now, however, the fear of screwing things up pounded through his head and prevented him from enjoying the experience.

Down he went, falling and plunging down and across until he slammed into the ground with a _plop!_

"Are you alright?"

"Of course, kiddo," wheezed 625, the wind knocked out of him. He quickly severed the lamp from its cable, although he was still lying face-down. "Quick, take the – _gasp_ – cable and tie it to the – _gasp! _– bar, while I re-engage proper functionality of my lungs."

Evens nodded and took both the cable and the lamp head from 625. As he pushed himself back to his legs, taking deep breaths as he did, he watched as Evens secured the line on the bar, as he had asked.

"_What do I do with the lamp!_" he shouted.

"_Just toss it!_" 625 replied.

And at this suggestion, Evens threw the lamp into the ever-approaching ravine.

He tugged at the make-shift rope-bridge. "I dunno, it doesn't look very secure," he opinioned.

"It's either this or taking your chances with the dark-and-most-likely-deadly-pit," replied 625. "Look, I'll go first."

Delicately, he grabbed the cable with his hands. He shuffled along it a bit, so that his feet were not touching the ground, and then swung them up so he could cling to them with his hind claws as well. And then, after giving Evens a reassuring look, he scaled the rope quickly, only looking back down once he'd safely jumped back into the small office behind the shattered window.

"_Well then, come on!_" he yelled to Evens.

Evens had been backed against the wall, and a small sliver about five tiles long was all that stood between him and potentially infinite falling. He looked to the rope, then to the wall of collapsing tiles that was now almost upon him. He shot a nervous glance up at 625, and then, just as the falling tiles had reached the spot he was standing, he jumped.

625 glanced away, unwilling to see his demise if he had missed – but as he looked up again, he saw first that the rope was sagging and swaying, and indeed, second that Evens had grabbed the cable just as the last tiles had fell away.

"Alright, just keep moving! One hand in front of the other, that's it!" 625, who knew better than to tell him not to look down – goodness knows that that particular trope had been done to death – had decided the best approach was a positive one, to keep him away from any precarious thoughts. True, it was a rather new approach for him – Gantu had never given him much cause for encouragement – but there was a first time for everything, right?

Evens progressed rather slowly, his gingerly awkward monkey-style climb severely stymieing his ascent. But after what seemed like an eternity of gradual climbing, and a little bit of trouble navigating around the now non-functional security camera, he had finally reached the end of his rope.

Unfortunately, the end of the rope was still a few meters vertical from the window.

"What do I do _now?_" Evens shouted, an edge of panic in his voice. "Oh, sweet goodness, I don't want to be stuck here-"

"Don't worry! All you need to do is swing your body back and forth, like you're on one of those… uh, the odd things children like to play with in parks."

"_Swings_?"

625 should've known the name would be that simple – humans had a tenant for calling a cog a cog.

"Yes, those things. On your third swing, you should have enough pivot to launch yourself into the window, provided you release at the zenith of your arc-"

"_What_?"

625 sighed. "Let go at the highest point of your swing."

"But what if I miss? I don't want to fall either!"

"If you stay there, your arm'll tire out, and then ya'll fall anyhow." He tapped an imaginary watch on his arm. "Just do it, would ya? I've got some sandwiches back at home waiting for me."

Besides, though he'd nary mention it to anyone, he didn't want Gantu to worry _too_ much. As much as he was annoying, he was still the closest thing he'd had to a pal on this planet.

"Alright, then." Evens took a deep breath and began to swing.

It was on his seventh swing (in between 625's urges for him to jump already) that a creaking sound could be heard echoing through the chamber. Evens flung his head around, searching for the source, but 625, who could pinpoint exactly where it came from, knew exactly what it had been.

"The bar the cable's tied to, it's creaking – hurry up and release! Creator knows what it's going to do!"

Evans nodded and, giving it two more swings, flung himself into the air, landing in a crumpled heap beside 625.

"Glad ya made it," said 625, patting Evens on the back. "Now, let's get out of here."

And after Evens got to his feet, the two were off, leaving through the only doorway in the small room, daring not to imagine what lay in the darkened hallways beyond.


End file.
